March Current Affairs 2021 pdf UPSC IES IRMS

1. Jal Shakti Abhiyan: Catch the Rain’ campaign

• PM Modi launched the ‘Jal Shakti Abhiyan: Catch the Rain’ campaign via video conferencing. The campaign was launched on World Water Day which is also celebrated on March 22.

• According to Prime Ministers’ Office, the Jal Shakti campaign will take place across India, in both the rural and the urban areas. The theme of the new campaign will be ‘Catch the rain, where it falls when it falls.

• Apart from launching the campaign, Prime Minister Modi also witnessed the signing of MoU between the Union Minister of Jal Shakti and Chief Ministers of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh in order to implement the Ken Betwa Link Project. It will be the National Perspective Plan’s first project for the interlinking of rivers.

Jal Shakti Abhiyan: Catch the Rain Campaign:

• The campaign will be launched as a Jan Andolan for taking the idea of water conservation and preservation at the grassroot level through the people’s participation.
• The Catch the Rain Campaign will be implemented from March 22 to November 30 during the pre-monsoon and the monsoon period in the country.

Ken-Betwa Link Project:

• The Ken-Betwa Link Project (KBLP) is the River interlinking project that aims to transfer surplus water from the Ken river in MP to Betwa in UP to irrigate the drought- prone Bundelkhand region.
• The project involves building a 77-metre tall and a 2-km wide Dhaudhan dam and a 230-km canal.

• It will not only accelerate the water conservation by the construction of a multipurpose dam but will also produce 103 MW of hydropower and will supply drinking water to 62 lakh people

• why delay: Because of certain environmental and wildlife conservation concerns like passing of the project through critical tiger habitat of Panna tiger reserve, the project is stuck in for the approval from National Green Tribunal (NGT), and other higher authorities.

2. Swachhta Saarthi Fellowship: Waste to Wealth Mission

• The Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India under its “Waste to Wealth” Mission launched the “Swachhta Saarthi Fellowship”.

• To recognize students, community workers/self-help groups, and municipal/sanitary workers who are engaged in tackling the enormous challenge of waste management, scientifically and sustainably.

Three Categories of Awards under the Fellowships:

• Category-A: Open to School students from 9th to 12th standards engaged in waste management community work.
• Category-B: Open to College students (UG, PG, Research students) engaged in waste management community work.
• Category-C: Open to Citizens working in the community and through SHGs, municipal or sanitary workers working beyond specifications of their job requirements/ descriptions.

• Waste to Wealth Mission: This mission will identify, develop, and deploy technologies to treat waste to generate energy, recycle materials, and extract worth.

• The Waste to Wealth Mission is one of the nine national missions of the Prime Minister’s Science, Technology, and Innovation Advisory Council (PM-STIAC).

3. UN General Assembly adopts India’s resolution to declare 2023 as International Year of Millets

• The United Nations has unanimously declared 2023 as the International Year of Millets. The 193 member UN General Assembly adopted a resolution sponsored by India and supported by over 70 nations declaring 2023 as the International Year of Millets.

• The resolution titled ‘International Year of Millets 2023’ was initiated by India with Bangladesh, Kenya, Nepal, Nigeria, Russia, and Senegal and was co-sponsored by over 70 nations.

4. Ease of Living & Municipal Performance Index 2020

• Recently, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs released the final rankings of the Ease of Living Index (EoLI) 2020 and the Municipal Performance Index (MPI) 2020.

Municipal Performance Index:

• It seeks to examine local government practices in municipalities across areas of services, finance, policy, technology and governance.

• The assessment framework under MPI 2020 has classified municipalities based on their population:

1. Million+ (municipalities having over a million population): Indore has emerged as the highest ranked municipality, followed by Surat and Bhopal.
2. Less than a Million Population: New Delhi Municipal Council topped, followed by Tirupati and Gandhinagar.

Ease of Living Index:

• It is an assessment tool that evaluates the quality of life and the impact of various initiatives for urban development.

5. Food Waste Index Report 2021

• United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) released the Food Waste Index Report 2021.

• It presents the most comprehensive food waste data collection, analysis, and modeling to date, generating a new estimate of global food waste.

• This report estimates that around 931 million tonnes of food waste were generated. 61% of which came from households, 26% from food service, and 13% from retail.

• Reducing food waste can slow the destruction of nature through land conversion and pollution, enhance the availability of food and thus reduce hunger and save money at a time of global recession.

• This Food Waste Index Report aims to advance progress on Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 12.3), i.e. “By 2030, halve per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reduce food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses”.

• About 8-10% of global greenhouse gas emissions are associated with food that is not consumed. Thus, tackling food wastage issues can further achieve Paris Agreement targets.

6. Bharat Bangla Maitri Bridge

• Prime Minister inaugurated Bharat Bangla Maitri Bridge in Tripura’s South district.

• The bridge ‘Maitri Setu’ has been built over the Feni river which flows between the Indian boundary in Tripura State and Bangladesh.

• Feni originates in the South Tripura district. The river passes through Sabroom town on the Indian side and meets the Bay of Bengal after it flows into Bangladesh.

• The 1.9 Km long bridge joins Sabroom (in Tripura) with Ramgarh (in Bangladesh).

• The name ‘Maitri Setu’ symbolizes growing bilateral relations and friendly ties between India and Bangladesh.

7. ISRO develops radar for joint earth observation satellite mission with NASA

• Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has completed the development of a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) capable of producing extremely high-resolution images for a joint earth observation satellite mission with the U.S. space agency National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

• NASA-ISRO SAR (NISAR) is a joint collaboration for a dual-frequency L and S-band SAR for earth observation. NISAR will be the first satellite mission to use two different radar frequencies (L-band and S-band) to measure changes in our planet’s surface less than a centimeter across”, according to NASA.

• The mission is targeted to launch in early 2022 from ISRO’s Sriharikota spaceport in Andhra Pradesh’s Nellore district, about 100km north of Chennai.

• L-band (1–2 GHz) by NASA and S-band by ISRO (2–4 GHz) All GPS signals are in the L-band of the frequency spectrum ( 1–2 GHz). Because L-band waves penetrate clouds, fog, rain, storms, and vegetation, GPS units can receive accurate data in all weather conditions, day or night.

• The higher frequency bands typically give access to wider bandwidths but are also more susceptible to signal degradation due to ‘rain fade’ (the absorption of radio signals by atmospheric rain, snow, or ice).