Important Current Affairs 7th September 2019

NATIONAL:

First Mega Food Park was held in Telangana.

• The first Mega Food Park in Telangana was held at Lakkampally village in Nizamabad district. It was inaugurated by the Union Minister for Food Processing Harsimrat Kaur Badal. The food park was promoted by Smart Agro Food Park. The Smart Agro Mega Food Park was set up in 78 acres of land at a cost of Rs.108.95 crore.

The facilities in the park include a 5,000-tonne warehouse each for raw materials, finished goods, and commodities, 500-tonne deep freeze, Turmeric-Curcumin, Oleoresin Extraction unit of 5 tonnes a day, quality control lab and other related food processing facilities.

Aim:

Mega Food parks aimed to facilitate the doubling of farmer’s income by 2022. The scheme functions along with the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi which is a government initiative in which all small and marginal farmers will get up to Rs.6,000. Mega Food Parks will reduce post-harvest losses and hedge the farmer’s risk.

The Ministry aims to boost the food processing industry. If the agriculture sector grows exponentially, it will become a major contributor to double the farmer’s income and Make In India initiative of the government.

Benefits:

The Mega Food Park leveraged an additional investment of about Rs.250 crore in 22 food processing units. It generated a turnover of about Rs.14,000 crore. It is also expected that the Mega Food Parks will also provide 50,000 direct and indirect jobs and benefit about one lakh farmers.

Financial assistance:

The Mega Food Park Scheme is implemented to boost the food processing sector. The government provides financial assistance up to Rs.50 crore per Mega Food Park project.

India ranks 34th in World Travel Tourism Competitiveness Index.

• According to the reports, tourism in India is seeing an upward trend as India ranks 34th position on world travel and tourism competitiveness index. With this, India moves up six places up, and this has been driven by the rich natural and cultural resources, alongside strong price competitiveness.

The report stated, “India, which accounts for the majority of South Asia's T&T (travel and tourism) GDP, remains the sub-region's most competitive T&T economy, moving up six places to rank 34th globally. India showed the greatest percentage improvement to its overall Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI) score, which has helped it become the only lower-middle income country in the top 35.”

AGREEMENTS AND MOU’S:

CBSE partners with Microsoft for capacity building of teachers for AI learning in schools.

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has joined hands with Microsoft to conduct capacity building programmes for high school teachers and integrate cloud-powered technology in teaching.

Meant for teachers of classes eight to 10, the programme will be conducted in 10 cities across the country, starting September 11, 2019.

As part of the programme, at least 1,000 teachers nominated by the CBSE will undergo a three-day project-based training for practical, hands-on knowledge of Microsoft 365 tools such as OneNote, Flipgrid, Teams and Outlook.

"Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become a strategic lever for economic growth across nations around the world. Through this initiative, we are empowering institutions, educators and students of India to acquire early education and skills in new technologies like AI and cloud to lead that growth in that rapidly changing world.