Current Affairs 28th April 2018

Current Affairs 28th April 2018 - Important Points

• BARC developed cheaper,lightweight bulletproof jackets - Bhabha Kavach
• 23rd meeting of Western Zonal Council in held in - Gandhinagar
• Seed import-export portal launched by - The Union Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare 
• PM Modi launched Van Dhan Scheme to help increase tribal income on - 14th April 2018
• First license for Liquid Chlorine on all India basis granted by - Bureau of Indian Standards
• Long Term Agreements for supply of iron ore to Japan and South Korea approved by - Union Cabinet
• CSIR wins National Intellectual Property Award 2018 on - 26th April 2018

Current Affairs 28th April 2018 - Details

BARC developed cheaper,lightweight bulletproof jackets - Bhabha Kavach

The BARC has established Bhabha Kavach, a forthcoming generation bulletproof jacket that is cheaper, lighter. It has been named after Dr. Homi J. Bhabha, father of Indian nuclear programme. The jacket was produced at Bhabha Atomic Research Centre’s Trombay centre in Mumbai in response to appeal from Ministry of Home Affairs and Central Reserve Police Force.
Important Points

• Bhabha Kavach is made of boron carbide and carbon nanotube polymer mixture and carrying weighs 6.6 kilograms only.
• The materials used in it decrease weight by nearly 50 per cent as compared to currently used heavy steel-armoured jackets that weights between 10 kilograms to 17 kilograms.
• It has accepted over 30 tests carried out by expert agencies. These materials have been developed in India at Bhabha Atomic Research Centre and are spin-off from nuclear technology.
• Apart from being lighter, stronger and more reliable, this Bhabha Kavach is cost effective also. It will cost Rupees 60,000-70,000 as compared to trade in bulletproof jackets costing around Rupees 1.5 lakh.
• Bhabha Kavach is capable to survive eight 7.62 millimetres bullets fired from AK 47 rifle from distance of 5-10m. It can even survive 5.56 millimetres bullet of Indian Small Arms System.
• It is presently being verified by joint team of Central Reserve Police Force, ITBP and CISF. The northern command of Indian Army is also testing jacket variants in J&K.
• If jackets qualify various tests, it will be produced by defence public sector unit Mishra Dhatu Nigam Limited.
  More about Bhabha Atomic Research Centre
• The Bhabha Atomic Research Centre is India’s leading nuclear research facility located in Mumbai,
  Maharashtra. It is multi-disciplinary research centre with widespread infrastructure for advanced R&D.
• Its Research & Development covers whole spectrum of nuclear science, engineering and concerned areas. Bhabha Atomic Research Centre’s core command is to sustain peaceful applications of nuclear  energy, primarily for power generation.

23rd meeting of Western Zonal Council in held in - Gandhinagar

The 23rd meeting of Western Zonal Council was organised at Gandhinagar, Gujarat under the leadership of Union home minister Rajnath Singh. The meeting was witnessed by CM Maharashtra and Gujarat, ministers of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Union Territories of Daman and Diu administrators and Dadra and Nagar Haveli and senior officers from Central and state governments.
Zonal Councils

• Zonal Councils were organised under the State Reorganization Act, 1956 to increase Inter-State
  collaboration and harmonization among the States.
• Presently, there are total 5 zonal councils viz. Northern, Western, Eastern, Central and Southern.
• They are not constitutional bodies and they are only purposeful and advisory bodies. The Union Home Minister is its Chairman.
• Zonal Councils provide a mutual meeting ground for the States to encourage and facilitate synchronized efforts for fostering economic and social progress.
• They are regional fora of obliging endeavour for States connected with each other geographically, economically and culturally.
• They are authorized to discuss and make approvals on matters of common interest in field of economic and social planning, linguistic minorities, border disputes and inter-State transport and many more.

Seed import-export portal launched by - The Union Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare 

The Union Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare has released seed import-export web-portal to
simplify export-import of seeds and planting material. It has been established for making trade process
easy. The ministry has detached all bans imposed on export of seeds of different varieties to boost export of seeds. It also has made import-export policy elastic and transparent for determining availability of good quality seeds to farmers found out universally. The import-export of seeds and planting material is measured under Import Export Policy 2002-2007.
Key Points

• With the release of this web portal, all firms importing-exporting seeds will not be needed to submit their applications in 20 copies.
• Using this portal, employees of agriculture department will also implement the process associated to import-export applications in smooth way.
• This portal will expeditiously process remarks from the various departments that will outcome in timely disposal of the applications.

PM Modi launched Van Dhan Scheme to help increase tribal income on - 14th April 2018

The PM, Narendra Modi initiated the Van Dhan Scheme of Ministry of Tribal Affairs and TRIFED on April 14th,2018, during the festivities of Ambedkar Jayanti at Bijapur, Chattisgarh. 
While speaking at the release, the PM said that the Van Dhan scheme along with others like Jan Dhan and Gobar Dhan schemes had the power to alteration the tribal-rural economic system. Henceforth, he instructed that all the 3 schemes require to be encouraged by the state governments.
Key Highlights

• Under Van Dhan, ten Self Help Groups of thirty Tribal gatherers would be formed.
• The groups will then be skilled and provided with working money to add value to the products that they collect from the forest.
• These groups would then be capable to market their products, by employed under the management of collector, within and outside the states. 
• The Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation of India would be delivering all the needed training and technical support. 
• The SHGs will be suitably trained on maintainable harvesting, primary processing and value addition and be shaped into clusters so as to collect their stock in tradable quantity and connect them with the provision of primary processing in a Van Dhan Vikas Kendra.
• Big businesses shall be complicated under PPP model for the formation of secondary level value-addition facility at district level and tertiary level value addition facility at the state level.
• The central and state government would deliver backing by creating infrastructure and delivering environment for enterprise value addition of systematic scientific lines.

First license for Liquid Chlorine on all India basis granted by - Bureau of Indian Standards

 BIS has decided First Licence to Gujarat Alkalies and Chemicals Ltd for Liquid Chlorine on all India basis according Indian Standard 646:1986. It is the First all India based approved Licence. The licence has been operative starting from April 2018 for a period of 1 year.
Key Facts

• Liquid Chlorine is in liquid form and stored in metal containers. It is typically utilised as gas obtained by evaporating liquid from metal container. It is utilised mostly in paper, pulp, water sterilization, textile bleaching and chemicals manufacturing.
• The endorsement of 1st licence will simplify industry to get quality Liquid Chlorine with Standard Mark under Bureau of Indian Standards Certification Marks scheme.
  Bureau of Indian Standards
• Bureau of Indian Standards National Standard Body of India recognized under BIS Act, 1986. It is
  mandated for harmonious progress of activities of standardization, marking and quality certification of goods and for matters connected. It is HQ at New Delhi.
• Bureau of Indian Standards is incorporated in various actions including standards formulation, product-certification scheme, compulsory-registration scheme, foreign-manufacturers certification scheme, hall marking scheme, laboratory services, laboratory recognition scheme, sale of Indian standards, consumer affairs activities, promotional activities, training services, national & international level and information services.

Long Term Agreements for supply of iron ore to Japan and South Korea approved by - Union Cabinet

Union Cabinet has permitted renewal of long-term agreements for export of iron ore of grade +64 per
cent Fe content to Japan and South Korea for another 5 years from 2018 to 2023, through state-owned
trading firm MMTC. The wide range of quantity of iron ore to be exported will be 3.8 million tonnes/
annum to 5.5 million tonnes/annum.
Benefits

• Export of iron ore under Long Term Agreements will benefit India to fortify its bilateral relations with long-standing partner nations, Japan and South Korea by securing export market and result in inflow of foreign exchange.
• It will permit India to secure global market for its ores and make sure stable economic environment that ensures direct/indirect services in mining and related segments.
  Did you know?
• India has been exporting iron ore to Japan for about last 6 decades and it has been reliable component of India’s bilateral relations with Japan. MMTC has been providing iron ore to Japanese Steel Mills since 1963 and to South Korea since 1973.
• The present Long-Term Agreements with Japanese Steel Mills and South Korea’s POSCO for supply of iron ore for time-period of 3 years had pass away on 31st March, 2018.
• The Union Cabinet had sanctioned MMTC to engage in Long-Term Agreements with Japanese Steel Mills and POSCO, South Korea for supply of iron ore for a term-period of 3 years from 2015-2018, in its meeting organised in June 2015.

CSIR wins National Intellectual Property Award 2018 on - 26th April 2018

The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research was bestowed the National Intellectual Property Award, 2018 for being the highest research and development company for patents and commercialisation, on April 26th , 2018.
The prize was conferred by Union Commerce Minister Suresh Prabhu, at a function planned by the Indian Intellectual Property Office and CII in New Delhi, to rejoice the World Intellectual Property Day. The Director-General of CSIR, Girish Sahni, acknowledged the award on behalf of CSIR.
More about CSIR

• The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research is a modern research and development firm. It was founded in 1942. 
• It runs 38 laboratories and 39 field stations around the country, with a communal staff of more than 12,000 scientists and scientific and technical personnel.
• It has been positioned 9th in the world amongst 1207 government institutions, with a complete global ranking of 75 amongst 5250 organizations.
• It is known as the innovator of India’s intellectual property movement. 
• The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research laboratories have been evolving and providing technology focused on the unsatisfied necessity and the cutting-edge information base and HR on the other, for socio-economic development in the Country. 

More about World Intellectual Property Day

The World Intellectual Property Day was celebrated on April 26th, 2018 with the subject of ‘Powering change:Women in innovation and creativity’.
The day is observed yearly to learn about the role that intellectual property rights play in inspiring innovation and creativity. Present year’s World Intellectual Property Day movement observes the brilliance, ingenuity, curiosity and courage of the women who are driving alteration in the world and shaping our common future.