Contents
- National Youth Parliament Festival and National Youth Festival
- Combat Vehicles Research and Development Establishment (CVRDE)
- NISHTHA and DIKSHA Portal
- Light Detection and Ranging Survey (LiDAR) technology
NATIONAL YOUTH PARLIAMENT FESTIVAL AND NATIONAL YOUTH FESTIVAL
Focus: GS 3;Science and Technology- developments and their applications and effects in everyday life.
Why in News?
PM to address valedictory function of 2nd National Youth Parliament Festival on 12 January
About National Youth Parliament Festival
- The objective of the National Youth Parliament Festival (NYPF) is to hear the voice of youth between 18 and 25 years of age, who are allowed to vote and will join various careers in coming years, including public services.
- NYPF is based on the idea given by the Prime Minister in his Mann Ki Baat Address on 31st December 2017.
- Taking inspiration from the idea, the first NYPF was organised from 12 January to 27 February 2019 with the theme “Be the Voice of New India and Find solutions and Contribute to Policy”.
- The second NYPF was launched on 23rd December 2020 through virtual mode.
- It was followed by State Youth Parliaments through virtual mode from 1 to 5 January 2021.
- The top three winners will get an opportunity to speak before the Prime Minister in the valedictory function on 12th January.
About National Youth Festival
- National Youth Festival is celebrated every year from 12th to 16th January.
- 12th January being the birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda Ji, is observed as National Youth Day.
- This year, NYPF is also being organized along with the National Youth Festival.
- The objective of the National Youth Festival is to bring youth of the country together to showcase their talents, provide them an arena, by creating a mini-India, where youth interact in formal and informal settings and exchange their social and cultural uniqueness.
- It is also to promote national integration, spirit of communal harmony, brotherhood, courage and adventure.
- The basic aim is to propagate the spirit, essence and concept of Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat.
- Due to COVID-19, the 24th National Youth Festival is being held in virtual mode.
- ‘YUVAAH – Utsah Naye Bharat Ka’ is the theme of this year’s festival, which suggests, the youth bring alive the celebration of New India.
COMBAT VEHICLES RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT ESTABLISHMENT (CVRDE)
Focus: GS 3;Achievements of Indians in science & technology; indigenization of technology and developing new technology.
Why in News?
Handing Over of Products Developed by CVRDE to Users
About Combat Vehicles Research and Development Establishment (CVRDE)
- Combat Vehicles Research and Development Establishment (CVRDE) is a laboratory of the Defence Research and Development Organisation. Located in Avadi, in Chennai, India.
- It is the main DRDO lab involved in the development of Armoured fighting vehicles, Tanks, Automotive electronics and many other.
- CVRDE is the main research lab responsible for the development of the Arjun MBT, 248 of which have been ordered by the Indian Army.
- It has also developed the Tank-EX, Bhim Self Propelled Artillery, based on the Arjun Chassis, and the Combat Improved Ajeya, an upgrade of the Indian Army’s T-72 Tanks.
- Apart from these, CVRDE has also developed other combat and Engineering Vehicles, like Armored Cars, Bridge-layer Tanks, Armoured Recovery Vehicles and a Mortar Carrier based on the BMP-2 chassis.
- The Vision of CVRDE is Be a Centre for Design & Development of State-of-the-art Armored Fighting Vehicles (AFVs) for the Army & Spin-offs for Other services (Air force, Navy & CAPF).
- The Mission of CVRDE is Design, develop and lead to production of Tracked Armoured Vehicles, Specialist Vehicles and Combat Aircraft systems to meet the needs of the services.
- Build technological capabilities in critical areas including test & evaluation of Combat systems.
NISHTHA AND DIKSHA PORTAL
Focus: GS 2;Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources.
Why in News?
Ministry of Education issues guidelines for identification, admission and continued education of migrant children
About NISHTHA And DIKSHA Portal
About NISHTHA (National Initiative for School Heads’ and Teachers’ Holistic Advancement)
- NISHTHA is a capacity building programme for “Improving Quality of School Education through Integrated Teacher Training”.
- It aims to build competencies among all the teachers and school principals at the elementary stage.
- The functionaries (at the state, district, block, cluster level) shall be trained in an integrated manner on learning outcomes, school based assessment, learner centred pedagogy, new initiatives in education, addressing diverse needs of children through multiple pedagogies, etc.
- This is being organized by constituting National Resource Groups (NRGs) and State Resource Groups (SRGs) at the National and the State level who will be training 42 lakhs teachers subsequently.
- A robust portal/Management Information System (MIS) for delivery of the training, monitoring and support mechanism has been infused with this capacity building initiative.
- The main expected outcomes from NISHTHA are:-
- Improvement in learning outcomes of the students.
- Creation of an enabling and enriching inclusive classroom environment
- Teachers become alert and responsive to the social, emotional and psychological needs of students as first level counselors.
- Teachers are trained to use Art as pedagogy leading to increased creativity and innovation among students.
- Teachers are trained to develop and strengthen personal-social qualities of students for their holistic development.
- Creation of healthy and safe school environment.
- Integration of ICT in teaching learning and assessment.
- Developing stress free School Based Assessment focused on development of learning competencies.
- Teachers adopt Activity Based Learning and move away from rote learning to competency based learning.
- Teachers and School heads become aware of new initiatives in school education.
- Transformation of the Heads of Schools into providing academic and administrative leadership for the schools for fostering new initiatives.
About DIKSHA Portal
- DIKSHA (Digital Infrastructure for Knowledge Sharing) is a national platform for school education, an initiative of National Council for Education Research and Training (NCERT), MHRD, now Ministry of Education.
- DIKSHA was developed based on the core principles of open architecture, open access, open licensing diversity, choice and autonomy as outlined in the Strategy and Approach Paper for the National Teacher Platform released by the former Hon’ Minister for Human Resources Development Shri Prakash Javdekar in May, 2017.
- DIKSHA itself was launched by the Hon’ Vice President of India on Sept 5th, 2017 and has since been adopted by 35 states/UT’s across as well as CBSE and NCERT and by crores of learners and teachers.
- DIKSHA is built on open source technology, made in India and made for India, which incorporates internet scale technologies and enables several use-cases and solutions for teaching and learning.
- DIKSHA, as mentioned earlier, is available for the use of all states and UTs of India.
- DIKSHA policies and tools make it possible for the education ecosystem (educationist, experts, organisations, institutions – government, autonomous institutions, non-govt and private organisations) to participate, contribute and leverage a common platform to achieve learning goals at scale for the country.
LIGHT DETECTION AND RANGING SURVEY (LiDAR) TECHNOLOGY
Focus: GS 3;Science and Technology- developments and their applications and effects in everyday life.
Why in News?
High Speed Rail work gathers momentum.LiDAR (Aerial Ground) Survey for Delhi – Varanasi High Speed Rail Corridor begins
Please click on this link for a detailed explanation about LIDAR Technology
