India’s First ‘Gender Park’ in Kerala’s Kozhikode

1. India’s First ‘Gender Park’ in Kerala’s Kozhikode

• The Kerala government is all set to launch Rs 300 crore three-tower ‘Gender Park’ in Kozhikode. The park will become functional on the occasion of the second edition of the International Conference on Gender Equality (ICGE-II).
• The park will be inaugurated by the Chief Minister of Kerala, Pinarayi Vijayan, in between February 11-13 that will also mark the inauguration of the second edition of ICGE-II.
• The gender park was established with the aim of creating relevant interventions so as to address a range of gender-based issues. It includes both off-campus and on-campus activities and other projects that work to empower the individuals and communities.
• The gender park was established by the government of Kerala in 2013. It is an initiative that works towards gender equality and empowerment in Kerala. The headquartered for the initiative is in the capital of Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram.

 2. 5th Joint Meeting of the India-Japan Act East Forum

• The 5th joint meeting of the India-Japan Act East Forum (AEF) was held in New Delhi. The meeting was co-chaired by Foreign Secretary Shri Harsh Vardhan Shringla, and Suzuki Satoshi, Ambassador of Japan to India.
• During the 5th meeting, the AEF reviewed the progress of ongoing projects in the North Eastern Region of India in various areas including connectivity, hydropower, sustainable development, harnessing of water resources, and skill development.
• They also exchanged views on cooperation in new areas such as healthcare, agro-industries and SMEs, bamboo value chain development, smart city, tourism and people-to-people exchanges.
• The AEF was established in 2017 to provide a platform for India-Japan collaboration in the North Eastern Region under India’s “Act East Policy” and Japan’s vision for a “Free and Open Indo-Pacific”.

 3. Centre Approves ‘Startup India Seed Fund Scheme’

• The Central Government has approved the Rs 945-crore ‘Start-up India Seed Fund Scheme’ (SISFS), which aims to provide financial assistance to start-ups for the product trials, market-entry, proof of concept, prototype development and commercialization.
• The Rs 945 crore Startup India Seed Fund Scheme (SISFS) will become operational from April 1 of this year till 2025 and this will be disbursed through selected incubators across India, according to a gazette notification by the government.
• The scheme will be implemented by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DIIT). The funds under the scheme will be disbursed through the selected incubators across the country. The startup will receive seed support only once.

 4. Prakash Javadekar launches 2021 as Indo-French Year of the Environment

• The Union Minister of Environment, Forest & Climate Change Prakash Javadekar has launched the Indo-French Year of the Environment, along with Barbara Pompili, the French Minister for Ecological Transition in New Delhi.
• The basic objective of this partnership is to strengthen Indo-French cooperation in sustainable development, increase the effectiveness of actions in favour of global environment protection and give them greater visibility.
• This collaboration and the Indo-French Environment year will be held under the Ministry of Ecological Transition, in association with the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs along with the support of the Embassy of France in Delhi and its partners from the French side.

 5. Microsoft launches its new Taj Mahal inspired Engineering Hub

• Tech major Microsoft has launched its new India Development Center (IDC) facility in Noida, Uttar Pradesh.
• The new centre will serve as a leading hub for driving advanced engineering and innovation. The centre will build on Microsoft’s commitment to tap India’s world-class engineering talent and create solutions for a global impact.
• IDC NCR is the third development centre of Microsoft in India after Bengaluru and Hyderabad. The IDC NCR workspace architecture is inspired by the Taj Mahal, one of the seven wonders of the world.
• The IDC NCR facility will collaborate with Microsoft teams globally to build products and services for driving digital innovation. The centre will provide opportunities for engineering talent in the areas of Business & Productivity tools, AI, Cloud & Enterprise, Core Services, and the new Gaming division.

 6. ISRO to launch city college’s academic satellite

• ISRO chairman K Sivan is likely to inaugurate the ‘SriShakthiSat’ ground station at Sri Shakthi Institute of Engineering and Technology in Coimbatore.
• The station will help monitor the satellite developed by the institute, which is set to be launched by the ISRO. A satellite communication lab was established in the college in 2010.
• The satellite can detect fire and leaks on underground pipelines and collect info on bank thefts. ISRO is expected to launch this satellite, along with two other satellites built by JPR Institute, Chennai & GH Raisoni College of Engineering, Maharashtra.

 7. India ranks 10th in ‘Asia-Pacific Personalised Health Index’

• India ranked 10th out of 11 Asia Pacific countries in a newly-launched health index to measure the progress towards personalised healthcare. Singapore(1st), Taiwan (2nd), Japan (3rd) and Australia (4th) also performed well in overall readiness.
• These include Policy Context, Health Information, Personalised Technologies and Health Services.
• The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) report ”Asia-Pacific Personalised Health Index” measures the readiness of 11 health systems across the region–Australia, China, Japan, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and New Zealand–in adopting personalised healthcare, enabling the right care to be tailored to the right person at the right time.
• The ‘Personalised Health Index’ measures performance against 27 different indicators of personalised health across four categories called ”Vital Signs”.

 8. 73rd Martyrs’ Day observed on 30 January

• Martyr’s Day or Shaheed Diwas is observed every year on January 30 in the memory of Mahatma Gandhi, who was assassinated at Gandhi Smriti in the Birla House by Nathuram Godse in 1948.
• The day is observed to remember the sacrifices made by freedom fighters in the struggle for India’s independence and to pay our respects to them.
• Notably, Martyrs’ Day is also observed in India on March 23 to pay respect to Bhagat Singh, Shivaram Rajguru and Sukhdev Thapar, who was hanged death on this day in 1931.

 9. Oscar winning-actor Cloris Leachman passes away

• Oscar winning-actor Cloris Leachman has passed away. The late star was known as one of Hollywood’s most prolific performers having won an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, and eight Primetime Emmy Awards.
• Leachman’s character Phyllis in The Mary Tyler Moore Show, which she claimed was close to her own persona, brought the actress two Emmys as a featured actress in a series during the mid-’70s and made Leachman a household name.
• Leachman also won a supporting actress Oscar for a far different character, an embittered small-town housewife in Peter Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show.

 10. Airtel announces 5G ready network in Hyderabad

• Bharti Airtel took an edge by becoming the first telecom operator in India to demonstrate 5G services successfully. Bharti Airtel announced that it orchestrated live fifth-generation (5G) service over a commercial network in Hyderabad.
• Bharti Airtel explained that it used state of the art dynamic spectrum sharing so as to operate both 4G and 5G networks in the same spectrum block.
• One of India’s major telecom companies managed to do this atop the existing spectrum in the 1800 MHz band through the Non-Stand Alone (NSA) network technology.
• Airtel claimed that it took only a few seconds to download a full-length film during its demonstration of the 5G network.
• The company said that the 5G network could deliver ten times the speed and latency attained previously with 100 times the concurrency when compared to the technology in use.
• The government is conducting the auction of 2,251 MHz of spectrum through the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) at a reserve price of Rs 3.92 trillion from March 1, 2021.
• The government has not included the spectrum in the 3,300-3,600 MHz bands recommended for 5G by the telecom operators.

 11. Environment Minister releases National Marine Turtle Action Plan

• National Marine Turtle Action Plan has been recently released by the Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) in New Delhi. The Ministry also released the ‘Marine Mega Fauna Stranding Guidelines’ along with the Marine Turtle Action Plan.
• National Marine Turtle Action Plan and Marine Mega Fauna Stranding Guidelines have been released acknowledging the need for a conservation paradigm for marine turtles and marine megafauna.
• At the launch, the minister called for conserving both floral and faunal diversity including marine biodiversity.
• Both these documents include the ways and measures to promote inter-sectoral action for conservation.
• The documents also provide guidance for enhanced coordination amongst the government, all relevant stakeholders, and civil society on the response to cases of entanglement, stranding, injury, or mortality of marine mammals. All of them should also have better coordination to chalk out plans for the conservation of marine turtles.