current affairs 21 march 2021

1. Labour Bureau signs service level agreement with BECIL for conducting all India surveys on Migrant Workers

• These surveys will prove highly useful and game-changer in providing the Government with crucial data on migrant workers and the employment situation in formal and informal establishments.
• The Minister expressed happiness that the Bureau is integrating the survey work with the latest available technology to achieve timely and faster results.
  
• The surveys to be undertaken by Bureau will be integrated with the technology provided by the BECIL, which will substantially reduce the time taken for completion of surveys by at least 30-40 per cent
  
  
  

2. Manipur emerges as model state for Van Dhan Vikas Yojana

• Manipur has emerged as the champion state where the Van Dhan programme has emerged as a major source of employment for the local tribals
• 100 Van Dhan Vikas Kendras have been established. These constitute 1500 SHGs and are benefitting 30,000 tribal entrepreneurs, who are involved in the collection, processing, value-adding, packaging and marketing of value-added products from minor forest produce.
• With an active cooperation and participation of the state government at every level, the Van DhanKendras of Manipur have turned out to be a model enterprise for the rest of the country.
  
  
  

3. Govt unveils homegrown app ‘Mobile Seva App Store’ to counter google

• Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's initiative to make India Atmnirbhar, India has developed its first indigenously developed App Store called “Mobile Seva Appstore.
• Unvailing the app government has indirectly targeted the big tech companies Google and Facebook
• IT Minister Prasad said in Rajya Sabha that this is going to give the much-needed ‘boost’ for the indigenous app store.
  
  
  

4. India to conduct airborne radar surveys of himalayan glaciers

• Surveys to estimate the thickness of Himalayan glaciers, with a pilot study to be conducted in Lahaul-Spiti basin of Himachal Pradesh.
• Once the pilot project is done, similar studies will be conducted in Indus, Ganga and Brahmaputra sub-basins.
• Almost 33% of country’s thermal electricity and 52% of hydropower in the country is dependent on the water from rivers originating in Himalaya.
  
  
  

5. India, France Working on Third Joint Space Mission: ISRO

• France is the biggest partner of India in space
• Indo-French space collaboration is expanding into multiple domains including space exploration and human space flight programme