About MAHIR:

• The mission aims to quickly identify emerging technologies in the power sector and develop them indigenously, at scale, for deployment within and outside India. 
• Funding:
  • The Mission will be funded by pooling financial resources of the Ministry of Power, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy and the Central Public Sector Enterprises under the two Ministries.
  • Additional funding will be mobilized from the Government of India’s budgetary resources.
• Duration: The mission is Planned for an initial period of five years from 2023-24 to 2027-28.
• Structure of the Mission: The Mission will have a two-tier structure –
  • A Technical Scoping Committee: It will be chaired by the Chairperson of the Central Electricity Authority.
  • It will identify ongoing and emerging research areas globally and recommend potential technologies for development under the Mission.
  • Apex Committee: It will be chaired by the Union Minister for Power & New and Renewable Energy.
  • It will deliberate on the technology and products to be developed and approve the research proposal.
• Areas Identified for Research: Alternatives to Lithium-Ion storage batteries, modifying electric cookers/pans to suit Indian cooking methods, green hydrogen for mobility (High-Efficiency Fuel Cell), Carbon capture etc.

About Antardrishti dashboard:

• It provides the necessary knowledge to evaluate and track the development of financial inclusion by recording relevant data.
• It will also make it possible to assess the degree of financial exclusion at a local level across the nation so that such places may be addressed.

What is Financial Inclusion?

• It aimed to provide access to affordable and appropriate financial products and services, such as savings accounts, credit, insurance, and payment systems.
• The Reserve Bank has been promoting financial inclusion through various policy initiatives.
• To measure the extent of financial inclusion the central bank had constructed the Financial Inclusion (FI) Index in 2021.
• It is based on three dimensions of financial inclusion — ‘Access’, ‘Usage’ and ‘Quality’.
• The FI-Index has been conceptualised as a comprehensive index incorporating details of banking, investments, insurance, postal as well as the pension sector in consultation with the government and respective sectoral regulators.
• The index captures information on various aspects of financial inclusion in a single value ranging between 0 and 100, where 0 represents complete financial exclusion and 100 indicates full financial inclusion.

About Van Dhan Vikas Kendras:

• The Ministry of Tribal Affairs and Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation of India (TRIFED) launched the Van Dhan scheme in 2018 to improve tribal income through the value addition of tribal products.
• The Van Dhan Vikas Kendra Clusters provide the Van Dhan Vikas Kendras economies of scale, livelihood and market linkages, as well as entrepreneurship opportunities to Tribal forest gatherers.

Key Facts about Mahua Tree

• It is mainly cultivated or harvested in the wild in Southern Asia for its edible flowers and oil seeds.
• It is commonly known as madhūka, madkam, mahuwa, Butter Tree, mahua, mahwa, mohulo, Iluppai , Mee or vippa chettu.
• It is a frost resistant species that can grow in marginal areas of dry tropical and subtropical forests up to an altitude of 1200-1800 m.
• It can be found scattered in pastures, in crop fields in central India, and on rivers banks in semi-evergreen forests.
• It grows well where annual rainfall is between 500 mm to 1500 mm, and where temperatures are in the range of 2-46°C.
• It requires loamy or sandy-loam soils with good drainage and also occurs on shallow stony, clayey and calcareous soils.

About the Duty-free quota-free (DFQF) scheme:

• What it is? The decision to provide duty-free quota-free (DFQF) access for LDCs was first taken at the WTO Hong Kong Ministerial Meeting in 2005. 
• India became the first developing country to extend this facility to LDCs in 2008, providing market access to 85 per cent of India’s total tariff lines
• The scheme was expanded in 2014 providing preferential market access on about 98.2 per cent of India’s tariff lines to LDCs. 

Key facts about World Trade Organisation (WTO)

• It was set up on 1st January 1995 and was born out of the 1986-94 Uruguay Round of Negotiations.
• It is the only global international organization dealing with the rules of trade between nations.
• It is the successor to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)
• The main function of the WTO is to ensure that trade flows as smoothly, predictably and freely as possible.
• It further consists of two principles, the Most-favoured Nation (MFN) principle and the National treatment principle.
• It is a ‘member-driven’ organisation, with decisions taken by consensus among the member governments.
• Special and differential treatment to LDCs and developing countries in the form of special flexibilities and rights are specified in various WTO agreements and decisions.