DPN Topics
Subject: Environment/Agriculture Context: Professor Rattan Lal, the winner of this year’s World Food Prize spoke about importance of soil. Improving soil health not only boosts crop productivity, and makes farming profitable, but also mitigate the effects of climate change. Concept: Soil is living because it has 25 per cent of all biodiversity. There are […]
Subject: Schemes Context: A study commissioned by the Ministry of Rural Development has observed that Sansad Adarsh gram yojana scheme has not made “any significant impact” and that “in the current format is not achieving the desired purpose”. Concept: Prime Minister has launched the Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana (SAGY) on 11th October, 2014 on the […]
Subject: Economy Context: Ever since China started pilot project on its Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), there has been speculations of possibility of China’s digital currency replacing the US dollar as the reserve currency of the world. Concept: A reserve currency is a currency held in significant quantities by governments and institutions as a means […]
Subject: Economy/Geography Context: Government has announced the auction of 41 coal blocks that have a capacity to produce 225 million tonnes of coal per year after removing the end-use restrictions and relaxed prior mining experience as bidding criteria. Concept: India imports nearly 250 million tonnes of coal from other countries despite having the world’s […]
Subject: Science and tech Context: The Chinese Government is building the world’s largest police-run DNA database. Concept: Since 2013, Chinese authorities have collected DNA samples from entire ethnic minority communities and ordinary citizens outside any criminal investigations and without proper informed consent. This program of mass DNA data collection violates Chinese domestic law and global […]
Subject: IR Context: Government of India and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) here today signed a $750 million “COVID-19 Active Response and Expenditure Support Programme” to assist India to strengthen its response to the adverse impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on poor and vulnerable households. Concept: The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is a […]
Subject: Arts and culture Context: The Kodumanal excavation in Tamil Nadu of 10 pots and bowls, instead of the usual three or four pots, placed outside three-chambered burial cists and inside the cairn-circle, threw light on burial rituals and the concept of afterlife in megalithic culture. Concept: It was once a flourishing ancient trade city […]
Subject: Polity Context: Amid the on-going India-China border tension, a Parliamentary Standing Committee report on Sino-India relations post the Doklam standoff has been released. Concept: The Constitution of India makes a mention of these committees at different places, but without making any specific provisions regarding their composition, tenure, functions, etc. All these matters are dealtby the […]
Subject: Polity Context: Rajya Sabha election has been concluded for 19 seats recently. Concept: A third of Members of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha (which is a permanent House and is not subject to dissolution), from each State retire once in two years and polls are held to fill up the vacancies. Only elected members […]
Subject: Science and tech Context: A study published in Nature Medicine suggests that antibodies in individuals who recovered from SARSCoV2 infection start to decrease within two three months after infection. Besides inducing neutralising antibodies, novel coronavirus has also been found to induce cellular immunity. Concept: The immune system was separated into two branches: humoral immunity, for […]