GS Analyst
Daily Current Affairs

Mo Bus, the bus service of Odisha’s Capital Region Urban Transport (CRUT) authority, has been recognised by the United Nations as one of 10 global recipients of its annual Public Service Awards for 2022.

About Mo Bus service:

• The Mo Bus service was launched in November, 2018.
• Aim: to ensure "transformation of the urban public transport scenario in the city and its hinterland through use of smart technology, service benchmarking and customer satisfaction".
• The buses are designed to integrate smart technologies such as free on-board Wi-Fi service, digital announcements, surveillance cameras, and electronic ticketing.
• Air-conditioned Mo Bus fares start at Rs 5 and go up to Rs 70; non-AC fares are from Rs 5 to Rs 55.
  
  

How the service gained such remarkable recognition?

• Gender-responsive public service: The public transport service has been recognised for its role in promoting gender-responsive public services to achieve the SDGs.
• Adoption of real-time technologies: Mo Bus has incorporated “real-time technologies like live tracking, travel planner and e-ticketing”.
• An e-rickshaw system called ‘Mo E-Ride’ has been introduced as a last-mile feeder service.
• Women oriented: To increase women’s participation in the workforce, and to make women riders feel safer, it is committed to ensuring that 50% of Mo Bus Guides (conductors) are women.
  
  

Impact:

• 57 per cent of the city’s commuters now use the Mo Bus.
• Mo E-Ride is estimated to reduce pollution by 30-50 per cent.
• 40 per cent of Mo Bus conductors are women.
• 100 percent of Mo E-Ride drivers are women, transgender people, and people from disadvantaged communities.

The Sao Joao festival celebrated on June 24 is in a way a festival of fertility in Mother Nature.

Sao Joao festival:

• Sao Joao festival is immensely popular in North Goa and is celebrated with amazing enthusiasm and gusto.
• The celebrations will include revellers sporting crowns made of fruits, flowers and leaves, and the major draw of the feast is the water bodies – wells, ponds, fountains, rivers – in which the revellers take the “leap of joy”.
• Enjoyed by children and adults alike, the festival also includes playing the traditional gumott (percussion instrument), a boat festival, servings of feni, and a place of pride for new sons-in-law.
• This festival is marked by young men in Goa jumping into wells to retrieve the gifts thrown in by the villagers.
  
  
  

Significance of Sao Joao:

• According to Christian scriptures, when Mary told his mother Elizabeth that she was expecting Jesus, St. John, the Baptist jumped with delight in her womb.
• As a result, this celebration is also known since the Festival of Fertility, as young, expectant mothers bring offerings to God in the hopes of having a child.
• The leap into the well is thought to symbolise the womb, while the jump represents the pleasure and happiness associated with Jesus Christ’s birth.

Ilhan Omar, a representative from the US Congress, introduced a resolution on June 22 to condemn human rights violations in India, specifically those targeting Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Dalits, Adivasis, and “other religious and cultural minorities”.

• The resolution calls on the US Secretary of State to designate India as a ‘Country of Particular Concern’ under the International Religious Freedom Act.
• Such a move can lead to economic sanctions in extreme cases.
• The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), a consultative government body, has been recommending this designation for the past three years.
• There are three co-sponsors of the resolution.
• Among them is Rashida Tlaib, a Palestinian-American Congresswoman from Michigan who, along with Omar, is part of a grouping popularly called ‘the Squad’, a Left-wing cohort within the Democratic Party. Both are the first two Muslim women to be elected to the House.
• Another co-sponsor is Jim McGovern, a Congressman from Massachusetts, member of the Democratic progressive caucus in the House, and also the co-chair of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, a bipartisan caucus of the House.
• The third co-sponsor is Juan Vargas, a Congressman from California who, after college, joined the Jesuits working in El Salvador, served in the California State Senate, and got elected to the House in 2012.

What is the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF)?

• The USCIRF is an independent body, setup by the American government to “monitor the universal right to freedom of religion or belief abroad — not in the United States — using international standards to do so and makes policy recommendations to the President, Secretary of State, and Congress”.
• Its recommendations are non-binding.
• In the last few years, it has criticised the Indian government’s treatment of minority religion groups, the Citizenship Amendment Act, and the lynching of Tabrez Ansari in June 2019, calling on the Indian government to “take concrete actions that will prevent this kind of violence”.

Ukraine has said it has caused “significant losses” to the Russian military in airstrikes on Zmiinyi Island, also known as Snake Island, in the Black Sea.

About Zmiinyi Island

• Zmiinyi Island, also known as Snake or Serpent Island, is a small piece of rock less than 700 metres from end to end, that has been described as being “X-shaped”.
• It is located 35 km from the coast in the Black Sea, to the east of the mouth of the Danube and roughly southwest of the port city of Odessa.
• The island, which has been known since ancient times and is marked on the map by the tiny village of Bile that is located on it, belongs to Ukraine. 
• Significance in Russia-Ukraine conflict: If Russian troops succeed in occupying Snake Island and set up their long-range air-defence systems, they will control the sea, land and air in the north-west part of the Black Sea and in the south of Ukraine.
  
  

Historical background:

• Historically, Snake Island was Romanian territory until it was ceded in 1948 to the Soviet Union, which used it as a radar base.
• As Romania came under Soviet influence until 1989, Bucharest accepted the arrangement.
• Ukraine took control with the fall of communism and eventually in 2009 the International Court of Justice drew up the island's territorial limits, giving Romania almost 80% of the Black Sea continental shelf near the island, and Ukraine the rest.
• Snake Island is not just of strategic use, because this part of the Black Sea is rich in hydrocarbon resources - so The Hague ruling means both countries possess reserves of petroleum and gas.
• It may seem to be a small clump of rock with little obvious value, but its fate is a major element of Russia's war.

The Black Sea:

• The famed water body bound by Ukraine to the north and northwest, Russia and Georgia to the east, Turkey to the south, and Bulgaria and Romania to the west, which links to the Sea of Marmara through the Bosphorus and then to the Aegean through the Dardanelles, has traditionally been Russia’s warm water gateway to Europe.
• For Russia, the Black Sea is both a stepping stone to the Mediterranean as well as a strategic buffer between NATO and itself.
• Domination of the Black Sea region is a geostrategic imperative for Moscow, both to project Russian power in the Mediterranean and to secure the economic gateway to key markets in southern Europe.
• Russia has been making efforts to gain complete control over the Black Sea since the Crimean crisis of 2014.
• The domination of the Black Sea has been a major Russian objective of the ongoing war, along with the land bridge to connect Russia and Crimea.
• Cutting Ukrainian access to the Black Sea will reduce it to a landlocked country and deal a crippling blow to its trade logistics.
  
  

The Prime Minister recently inaugurated 'Vanijya Bhawan' and launched the NIRYAT portal.

What is Vanijya Bhawan?

• Vanijya Bhawan is constructed near the India Gate.
• It is designed as a smart building that incorporates the principles of sustainable architecture with a special focus on energy saving.
• Vanijya Bhawan will secure as an integrated and modern office complex that will be used by the two departments under the Ministry i.e. Department of Commerce and the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT).
  

NIRYAT Portal:

• NIRYAT - National Import-Export for Yearly Analysis of Trade portal aims toa help in breaking silos by providing real time data to all stakeholders.
• From this portal, important information related to more than 30 commodity groups exported to more than 200 countries of the world will be available. 
• In the coming time, information related to district-wise exports will also be available on this. This will also strengthen the efforts to develop the districts as important centers of exports.
  
  

ASSOCHAM organized a “National Conference on Millets: The Future Super Food for India” recently.

Millets:

• Millets are a group of highly variable small-seeded grasses, widely grown around the world as cereal crops or grains for human food and as fodder. 
• Millets have come to be looked down upon by modern urban consumers as “coarse grains”.
• Before Green Revolution, millets made up around 40 percent of all cultivated grains(contributing more than wheat and rice).
• However, since the revolution, the production of rice has increased doubly and wheat production has tripled.
• Millets are often referred to as Superfood and its production can be seen as an approach for sustainable agriculture and a healthy world.
• It is grown in 131 countries. Millets traditional food for 59 crore people in Asia & Africa.
• Millets are collective group of small seeded annual grasses that are grown as grain crops, primarily on marginal land in dry areas of temperate, sub-tropical and tropical regions.
  
  
  
  

Importance:

• Due to its high resistance against harsh conditions, millets are sustainable to the environment, to the farmer growing it, and provide cheap and high nutrient options for all.
• Nearly 40 percent of the food produced in India is wasted every year.
• Millets do not get destroyed easily, and some of the millets are good for consumption even after 10-12 years of growing, thus providing food security, and playing an important role in keeping a check on food wastage.
• Millet is fibrous in content, has magnesium, Niacin (Vitamin B3), is gluten-free and has high protein content.
• Anti-diabetes quality: Millets can also help tackle health challenges such as obesity, diabetes and lifestyle problems as they are gluten free, have a low glycemic index and are high in dietary fibre and antioxidants.
• Millet ingestion helps in a slower release of glucose over a longer period of time; thus, due to low glycaemic index (GI), their habitual intake reduces the risk of diabetes mellitus.
• More sustainable: Besides, millets help in reducing the atmospheric CO2 and thus contribute in mitigating the climate change.
• On the contrary, paddy is a major contributor to climate change through methane emission (the green-house gas emanating from water-drenched rice fields).

Steps taken for promoting millets since 2018:

• National Year for Millets 2018
• “Sub Mission on Millets” under National Food Security Mission since 2018.
• Several State launched mission on Millets.
• Millets included under POSHAN MISSION Abhiyan by Ministry of Women & Child Development.
• ICAR released one variety Quinoa (Him Shakti).
  • Quinoa – A new crop: ICAR has been referred to suggest for declaring Nutri-cereals.
• 200 Start-ups supported through IIMR, Hyderabad.
• 67 Value added Technologies developed at Centre of Excellences.
• Export of Millets increased from $ 24 million (2017) to $ 26 million (2020).
• Release of 13 High Yielding varieties including 4 bio-fortified varieties of millets.

International Year of Millets (IYoM)-2023:

• Government of India had proposed to United Nations for declaring 2023 as International Year of Millets (IYOM).
• The proposal of India was supported by 72 countries and United Nation’s General Assembly (UNGA) declared 2023 as International Year of Millets in March, 2021.
• Now, Government of India has decided to celebrate IYOM, 2023 to make it peoples’ movement so that the Indian millets, recipes, value added products are accepted globally.

A new species of spider discovered from the Thar Desert of Rajasthan has been named after a Malayalee arachnologist.

• The new species of jumping spider, Pseudomogrus sudhii, has been named after Sudhikumar A.V., in recognition of his contributions to the field of Indian arachnology.
• He is also founder of the Centre for Animal Taxonomy and Ecology (CATE).
• This species inhabits dry grass blades of the desert.
• It is the first report of this genus from India.
• So far 35 species of spiders of this genus have been discovered worldwide.
• The spider is only 4-mm long.
• Dark brown coloured head of male is covered with small white hairs and has black eye region.
• There is a dark mid-longitudinal band traversing the pale-yellow coloured abdomen.
• Head of the female is yellow with black eyes. There are white spots on its light-yellow abdomen.