ICDS
Category: Social sector
- Anganwadi services have a poor reach among key beneficiaries – the poorest of the poor and uneducated mothers – according to a paper published in a WHO bulletin recently.
- The government’s Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) provides a package of six services at anganwadi or child-care centres to young children and pregnant women and lactating mothers.
- These services include supplementary nutrition, referral services, immunisation, health check-up, pre-school non-formal education and health and nutrition education.
ISRO
Category: Sc & tech
- ISRO and its French counterpart CNES sealed an agreement to set up a joint maritime surveillance system in the country.
- The two nations will explore putting up a constellation of low-Earth orbiting satellites that will identify and track movement of ships globally – and in particular those moving in the Indian Ocean region where France has its Reunion Islands.
- The two agencies have put up two climate and ocean weather monitoring satellites Megha-Tropiques (of 2011) and SARAL-AltiKa (2013) that are considered a model. This fleet will be augmented with the launch of Oceansat-3-Argos mission in 2020 along with a joint infrared Earth-observation satellite.
Bolo
Category: Sc & tech
- Google launched a mobile application named ‘Bolo’ (speak) to help schoolchildren improve their Hindi and English reading skills.
- The beta version of the free application — launched first in India, uses Google’s speech recognition and text-to-speech technology.
Kiru Hydro Electric Project
Category: Geography
- The project is located on River Chenab in Kishtwar district of Jammu & Kashmir.
- It envisages construction of a 135 m high concrete gravity Dam.
- It is envisaged as a Run of River (RoR) Scheme.