WORLD SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT SUMMIT 2021
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has inaugurated the World Sustainable Development Summit 2021 through video conferencing.
The theme of the Summit is ‘Redefining our common future: Safe and secure environment for all’. 2021 WSD Summit is the 20th edition of the flagship event organised by ‘The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI)’.
The Summit will bring together a wide number of governments, business leaders, academicians, climate scientists, youth, and the civil society in the fight against climate change.
The Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy and Ministry of Earth Sciences are key partners of the Summit.
PRADHAN MANTRI URJA GANGA PROJECT
PM is responsible for the 348 km Dobhi-Durgapur Natural Gas Pipeline section across the country, which is part of the Pradhan Mantri Urja Ganga project.
This is a natural gas pipeline project that aims to provide cooking gas to people. It was launched in Varanasi in 2016 and later expanded to people in the states of Bihar, West Bengal, Orissa and Jharkhand.
The government is actively connecting the eastern states with the national gas grid.
The total length of the pipeline under the Pradhan Mantri Urja Ganga project is approximately 3,384 kilometers, of which 766 kilometers of pipelines are located in Orissa, and the remaining 2,618 kilometers are located in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Assam.
The project will not only provide Compressed Natural Gas for automobiles and cooking gas to household kitchens in cities along the route, but also provide natural gas for industries that meet their raw material or fuel needs. GAIL is implementing the project.
J&K REORGANISATION (AMENDMENT) ACT 2021
Rajya Sabha passed the “Jammu and Kashmir Reorganization (Amendment) Act 2021″ on February 8, 2021 by voice vote.
The bill seeks to replace the decree to merge the cadres of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) and the civil servants of Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, and Mizoram Confederate Territories (AGMUT).
The bill was introduced in the upper house of parliament. The bill will also increase the number of officers in the Union territories of Jammu, Kashmir and Leh.
After Article 370 of the region was revoked, the “Jammu and Kashmir Reorganization (Amendment) Act 2021” was passed and the “Jammu and Kashmir Reorganization Act” was promulgated in 2019.
The 2019 Act re-divided Jammu and Kashmir into two states on October 31, 2019, namely Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. It restructured the area of J&K, which has always been part of the larger area of Kashmir, which is a dispute between India, Pakistan and China.
ROBERT IRWIN HAS WON THE WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHER
Robert Irwin, an Australian wildlife photographer, has won the first prize in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year People’s Choice Award Contest.
Robert won the award for the image titled ‘bushfire’, which is the picture of the devastating Australian Bushfire in 2020, he captured using a drone, near the Steve Irwin Wildlife Reserve in Cape York, Queensland.
The image shows a line of fire burning in between the bushes, dividing it into parts.
Irwin’s image was chosen from a shortlist of 25 finalists that received a total of 55,486 votes. The Wildlife Photographer of the Year is the largest wildlife photography competition in the world, organised by the Natural History Museum.
INTERNATIONAL DAY OF WOMEN AND GIRLS IN SCIENCE
International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed globally on 11 February. International Day of Women and Girls in Science to recognize the critical role of women and girls play in science and technology.
In December 2015, the United Nations adopted a resolution to celebrate February 11 as the International Day of Women and Girls in Science.
The Day is implemented by UNESCO and UN-Women in collaboration with institutions and civil society partners that aim to promote women and girls in science.
The 2021 theme of the Day is “Women Scientists at the forefront of the fight against COVID-19”.
In 2016 is the first time it was celebrated. The idea behind this day is to ensure equal participation and involvement of women and girls in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).
ACI WORLD’S VOICE OF THE CUSTOMER AWARD
The Bangalore International Airport Limited’s (BIAL) or Kempegowda International Airport Bengaluru has bagged global recognition from the Airports Council International World’s ‘Voice of the Customer’ award.
The ‘Voice of the Customer’ recognises airports that continued to prioritise their customers and remained committed to ensuring that their voice was heard during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.
BLR Airport has made significant efforts in gathering passenger feedback through ACI’s Airport Service Quality (ASQ) programme and this helped better understand the customers and demonstrate BIAL’s commitment towards delivering a superior customer experience under trying circumstances.
Under the #WeAreHereForYou umbrella of BIAL, various campaigns were launched to spread the message and rebuild passenger confidence in air travel following the outbreak of Covid-19 in 2020.
WORLD UNANI DAY: 11TH FEBRUARY
World Unani Day has observed every year on 11th February. The main objective of World Unani Day is to spread awareness about health care delivery through the Unani system of medicine through its preventive and curative philosophy.
This day is celebrated every year to mark the birth anniversary of great Unani scholar and social reformer Hakim Ajmal Khan.
The first Unani Day was celebrated in 2017 at Central Research Institute of Unani Medicine (CRIUM), Hyderabad.
The Unani system of medicine has a long and impressive record in India. It was introduced in India by the Arabs and Persians sometime around the eleventh century.
It has the largest number of Unani educational, research and health care institutions. The Unani system of medicine originated in Greece. Its foundation was laid by Hippocrates.
The system owes its present form to the Arabs who not only saved much of the Greek literature by rendering it into Arabic but also enriched the medicine of their day with their own contributions.
Hakim Ajmal Khan was an eminent Indian Unani physician who was a versatile genius, a great scholar, a social reformer, a noted freedom fighter, an Unani medical educationist and founder of scientific research in Unani System of Medicine. He was one of the founders of the Jamia Millia Islamia in New Delhi.