- Bharat Ratna: Karpoori Thakur, a prominent Gandhian socialist leader and former Bihar chief minister will be awarded the ‘Bharat Ratna’ posthumously. It is the highest civilian Award of the country which was instituted in the year 1954.Any person without distinction of race, occupation, position or sex is eligible for these awards. Though usually conferred on India-born citizens, the Bharat Ratna has been awarded to one naturalised citizen, Mother Teresa, and to two non-Indians, Pakistan national Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan and former South African President Nelson Mandela. The original statutes did not provide for posthumous awards but were amended in 1955 to permit them. Former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri became the first individual to be honoured posthumously. It is awarded in recognition of exceptional service/performance of the highest order in any field of human endeavour. The recommendations for Bharat Ratna are made by the Prime Minister himself to the President and no formal recommendations for this are necessary. The number of annual awards is restricted to a maximum of three in a particular year. On conferment of the award, the recipient receives a Sanad (certificate) signed by the President and a medallion. The award does not carry any monetary grant.
- Design-Linked Incentive scheme: It aims to offer financial incentives as well as design infrastructure support across various stages of development and deployment of semiconductor design(s) for Integrated Circuits (ICs), Chipsets, System on Chips (SoCs), Systems & IP Cores and semiconductor linked design(s) over a period of 5 years. The scheme shall initially be for three years from 01-01-2022.The scheme has three components-
- Chip Design infrastructure support: Under this C-DAC will set up the India Chip Centre to host the state-of-the-art design infrastructure (viz. EDA Tools, IP Cores and support for MPW (Multi Project Wafer fabrication) & post-silicon validation) and facilitate its access to supported companies.
- Product Design Linked Incentive: a reimbursement of up to 50% of the eligible expenditure subject to a ceiling of 15 Crore rupees per application will be provided as fiscal support to the approved applicants
- Deployment Linked Incentive: Under this an incentive of 6% to 4% of net sales turnover over 5 years subject to a ceiling of ₹30 Crore per application will be provided to approved applicants.
- Nodal Agency: C-DAC (Centre for Development of Advanced Computing).
Insat-3DS: It is a collaborative effort between ISRO and the India Meteorological Organisation (IMD).It is part of a series of climate observatory satellites aimed at enhancing climate services. Comprising three dedicated Earth observation satellites, including INSAT-3D and INSAT-3DR already in orbit. It will be launched by using the Geosynchronous Launch Vehicle (GSLV-F14).
It is an advanced meteorological satellite of India configured with an imaging System and an Atmospheric Sounder. The significant improvements incorporated in INSAT-3DR are:
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- Imaging in Middle Infrared band to provide night time pictures of low clouds and fog
- Imaging in two Thermal Infrared bands for estimation of Sea Surface Temperature (SST) with better accuracy
- Higher Spatial Resolution in the Visible and Thermal Infrared bands
Payloads: INSAT-3DR carries a multi spectral Imager, 19 channel Sounder, Data Relay Transponder and Search and Rescue Transponder.
