1) Ambedkar Circuit: The Union Tourism and Culture Minister recently announced a special tourist train to cover the “Ambedkar Circuit”.
- Ambedkar Circuit covers Madhya Pradesh’s Mhow, Ambedkar’s birthplace; Nagpur, where he converted to Buddhism; the residence in Delhi where he lived during his last years; and Dadar in Maharashtra, where his body was cremated.
- The Tourism Ministry has drawn up an action plan for various circuits under its Swadesh Darshan scheme.
- Swadesh Darshan Scheme is a Central Sector scheme launched in 2014-15 by the Ministry of Tourism and Culture for the integrated development of theme-based tourist circuits.
- Under the Swadesh Darshan scheme, the Ministry of Tourism provides Central Financial Assistance – CFA to State Governments, Union Territory Administrations for the infrastructure development of circuits.
2) Death penalty: A three-judge Bench led by the Chief Justice of India said the presentation of mitigating factors by an accused to avoid the “extreme penalty of death” was a “valuable right”.
- The mitigating circumstances consisted of: The possibility of reformation and rehabilitation of an accused and His/her mental health and his antecedents.
- Machi Singh vs State of Punjab (1983): Guiding principles for death sentence: In this case, the Supreme Court elucidated the doctrine of “rarest of rare” and set down some guiding principles in death sentence cases.
- Bachan Singh vs State of Punjab (1980): This verdict established the doctrine of “rarest of rare” crime in handing down capital punishment while mandating a comparative analysis of aggravating and mitigating circumstances in connection to the accused.
3) Swachh Sujal Pradesh: Andaman and Nicobar (A&N) Islands have got India’s 1st Swachh Sujal Pradesh certification (by Jal Shakti Ministry). The certification is provided for ensuring 3 things:
- Safe and secure drinking water supply, ODF Plus status, awareness about cleanliness and convergence of schemes.
- All the villages of A&N islands have received Har Ghar Jal Certification.
4) Liveliness of fingerprints: UIDAI has introduced a new security layer for the Aadhaar-enabled Payment System (AePS) to prevent the use of fake fingerprints to fraudulently withdraw money.
- Liveness detection in biometrics is the ability of a system to detect if a fingerprint or face (or other biometrics) is real (from a live person present at the point of capture) or fake (from a spoof artefact or lifeless body part).
5) National Logistics Policy 2022: The National Logistics Policy 2022 was announced for the first time in Union Budget 2020.
- This policy sets the roadmap for developing a more interconnected and tech-driven framework for building cost and operational efficiency in the sector.
- It aims to promote smooth movement of goods across India and boost competitiveness of the Indian goods in the domestic and international markets.
- its focus areas are Integration of Digital System (IDS), Unified Logistics Interface Platform (ULIP), Ease of Logistics (ELOG) and System Improvement Group (SIG).
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