Kisan Credit Card Scheme: The scheme was introduced in 1998 for providing adequate and timely credit support from the banking system, under a single window for their cultivation and other needs like purchase of agriculture inputs.
Implementing Agencies:Commercial Banks, Regional Rural Banks (RRBs),Small Finance Banks,Cooperatives
Features:The scheme comes with an ATM-enabled RuPay debit card
Objectives:To meet the short term credit requirements, Post-harvest expenses, Consumption requirements of farmer households etc.
India-UAE CEPA:The agreement was signed on 18th February 2022, during the India-UAE Virtual Summit.The Agreement is a comprehensive agreement, which will cover:
Trade-in Goods,Rules of Origin,Trade-in Services,Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) measures,Dispute Settlement, Pharmaceutical products etc.
Relations: UAE is India’s third-largest trading partner.It is also the second-largest export destination of India.The UAE is the eighth largest investor in India.
Moreover, India and the UAE have recently entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) whereby the UAE has committed USD 75 billion towards infrastructure development in India.
Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement: It is a kind of free trade pact that covers negotiation on the trade in services and investment, and other areas of economic partnership. It may even consider negotiation in areas such as trade facilitation and customs cooperation, competition, and IPR.Partnership agreements or cooperation agreements are more comprehensive than FTAs.CEPA. India has signed CEPAs with South Korea and Japan.
International Year of Millets 2023: The United Nations General Assembly at its 75th session in March 2021 declared 2023 the International Year of Millets, following a proposal by India, which wants to position itself as a global hub for millet.
UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is the lead agency for celebrating the Year in collaboration with other relevant stakeholders. Millets are popularly known as “wonder food” due to its numerous health benefits.The year will be an opportunity to raise awareness of, and direct policy attention to the nutritional and health benefits of millets and their suitability for cultivation under adverse and changing climatic conditions.
Millets: Millets encompass a diverse group of cereals including pearl, proso, foxtail, barnyard, little, kodo, browntop, finger, and Guinea millets, as well as fonio, sorghum (or great millet), and teff. India, Nigeria, and China are the largest producers of millet in the world.
Significance: They grow on arid lands with minimal inputs and resilient to climate change.
- Millets can empower smallholder farmers, achieve sustainable development, eliminate hunger.
- Millets include various nutrients and minerals.
- Dietary fiber found in millet helps regulate blood pressure and sugar levels.
- Millets are hardy crops against disease/pests. Therefore, they require lesser support for chemicals, fertilizers, and pesticides.
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