GK Snapshots on 7 October 2021

National Voluntary Blood Donation Day 2021 – October 1

The National Voluntary Blood Donation Day is annually observed across India on October 1st to create awareness about blood donation and promote voluntary blood donation across India. The theme of the National Voluntary Blood Donation Day 2021 event is “Give Blood and keep the world-beating”.

Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya Released UNICEF’s Report on World’s Children Mental Health

Mansukh Mandaviya, the Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare released UNICEF’s (United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund) global flagship publication – ‘The State of the World’s Children 2021; On My Mind: promoting, protecting and caring for children’s mental health’.

• The publication details the significant impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of children. The report was launched globally on the same day.
• Around 14 percent of 15 to 24-year-olds (or 1 in 7) in India were reported feeling depressed or having little interest in doing things.

Textile Ministry Approved Continuation of Comprehensive Handicrafts Cluster Development Scheme

The Ministry of Textile has approved to continue its Comprehensive Handicrafts Cluster Development Scheme (CHCDS) up to March 2026 with a total outlay of Rs 160 crore. The scheme aims to offer support in terms of infrastructure development, design and technology access, market support, and others to the handicraft artisans and Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises(SMEs) to enhance production and exports

• This will focus on the integration of artisans, building grass-root level enterprises and link them to SMEs in handicraft sectors to ensure economies of scale.

MoS Som Prakash released Industrial Parks Rating System 2.0; 41 sites in Leaders Category

On October 5, 2021, Minister of State (MoS) Som Prakash, Ministry of Commerce & Industry released the 2nd edition of Industrial Park Ratings System (IPRS) report or IPRS 2.0 Report in New Delhi. It should be noted that it is the first annual IPRS as the earlier one was a pilot phase conducted in 2018.
 

• In the report 41 Industrial Parks were named as ‘Leaders’ category. These are mostly from Maharashtra and Rajasthan. 90 Industrial Parks are marked as ‘Challenger’ while 185 have been rated under ‘Aspirers’. • IPRS 2.0 is on the lines of Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan.

• It aims to enhance industrial competitiveness among parks, promote investment in the state industrial ecosystem, and to help industries to identify suitable investment destinations through a single platform.

Basis of analysis:

The report was prepared on the basis of following four pillars which have further 45 parameters:

i.Internal infrastructure

ii.External infrastructure and connectivity,

iii.Business support services

iv.Environment and safety management

New features in IPRS 2.0:

i.Widening the coverage of parks (~400 across SIDCs/ UTs/Central Departments)

ii.Inclusion of private sector parks in IPRS

iii.Economic Zones (manufacturing) assessed separately

iv.Park tenants feedback mechanism

Key Points:

i.This report is an extension of the India Industrial Land Bank (IILB) which features more than 4,400 industrial parks in a GIS (Geographic information system)-enabled database to help investors identify their preferred location for investment.

ii.While assessing IPRS 2.0 referred Eco-Industrial Park (EIP) Framework (2017) developed by UNIDO (United Nations Industrial Development Organization),World Bank and GIZ, and International Guidelines for Industrial Park (IGIP) (2019) developed by UNIDO.

iii.It also takes into consideration various other frameworks implemented by DPIIT (Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade) viz. Business Reform Action Plan (BRAP) and State Startup Ranking.

About IPRS:

It was launched in 2018 by DPIIT in support of ADB (Asian Development Bank) as a pilot exercise. Its objective is to support policy development for enabling industrialisation across the country.

Transport Ministry Announced Rules to set up RVSF

The Ministry of Road Transport & Highways (MoRTH) has released the rules for setting up the Registered Vehicle Scrapping Facility (RVSF) named ‘Motor Vehicles (Registration and Functions of Vehicle Scrapping Facility) Rules, 2021’ under the Vehicle Scrapping Policy.

Validity and Renewal of registration:

The registration of an RVSF will be valid for 10 years and can be renewed for 10 more years at a time.

The RVSF will provide connectivity and access to the VAHAN database of vehicle registration to make suitable entries regarding scrapping of the vehicle and issuance of Certificate of Deposit and Certificate of Scrapping.

• For access to the database, RVSF needs to obtain the necessary cyber security certifications for their IT system.
• In case of the RVSFs not having e centres adequate provisions to carry out responsible recycling of the hazardous waste, the waste should be handed over to duly authorised recyclers/agencies.

Orange Category Industrial Zone :

It should have an adequate useable area of land in the orange category industrial zone of the State or Union territory i.e. ‘Orange Zone’.The Orange category of industrial sectors would be 83.

• Red category – Industrial Sectors with PI score of 60 and above and industrial sectors list would be 60.

• Orange category – Industrial Sectors with PI score of 41 to 59 and industrial sectors list would be 83.

• Green category – Industrial Sectors with PI score of 21 to 40 and industrial sectors list would be 63.

• White category – Industrial Sectors with PI score incl.& upto 20 and industrial sectors list would be 36.

• No Red category of industries shall normally be permitted in the ecologically fragile area / protected area.

Literature Nobel goes to novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah

Abdulrazak Gurnah attends the Man Booker Prize For Fiction shortlist press conference in London on The theme of the refugee’s disruption runs throughout Abdulrazak Gurnah's work

Tanzanian-born novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah, whose work focuses on colonialism and the trauma of the refugee experience, won the Nobel Literature Prize on October 7.

Mr. Gurnah, who grew up on the island of Zanzibar but who arrived in England as a refugee at the end of the 1960s, is the fifth African to win the Nobel Literature Prize.

The Swedish Academy said Mr. Gurnah was honoured "for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents".

"His novels recoil from stereotypical descriptions and open our gaze to a culturally diversified East Africa unfamiliar to many in other parts of the world," the Nobel Foundation added.

He is best known for his 1994 breakthrough novel Paradise, set in colonial East Africa during World War I, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction.

The theme of the refugee's disruption runs throughout his work.

Born in 1948, Mr. Gurnah fled Zanzibar in 1968 following the revolution which led to oppression and the persecution of citizens of Arab origin.

He began writing as a 21-year-old in England. Although Swahili was his first language, English became his literary tool.

Literature Nobel goes to novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah

In an article he wrote for The Guardian in 2004, Mr. Gurnah said he hadn't planned to be a writer when he was living in Zanzibar, but once in England he felt overwhelmed by the sense of 'a life left behind'.

"If one way of seeing distance as helpful to the writer pictures him or her as a closed world, another argument suggests displacement is necessary, that the writer produces work of value in isolation because he or she is then free from responsibilities and intimacies that mute and dilute the truth," he wrote.

Mr. Gurnah has until his recent retirement been Professor of English and Postcolonial Literatures at the University of Kent in Canterbury, focusing principally on writers such as Wole Soyinka, Ngugi wa Thiong'o and Salman Rushdie.

The Nobel Prize comes with a medal and a prize sum of 10 million Swedish kronor (about $1.1 million).

In 2020, the award went to U.S. poet Louise Gluck.