No imports will be allowed without HSN code into the country said the Union Minister of Commerce & Industry and Railways, Piyush Goyal in New Delhi today. He was speaking at the 6th National Standards Conclave on the subject of Standards for Trade Facilitation.

Commerce & Industry Minister further said that henceforth there must be zero tolerance for substandard products and services from industry and consumers. He further stated that Government will support industry in every way to establish standards for Indian goods and services to meet international requirements so that brand India is recognized in the world as a provider of quality products and services. Unless Indian business and industry make standards its calling card, India will not be able to reach the target of a USD 5 trillion economy, said Piyush Goyal. The Government is committed to establishing standards of Indian products and services to world class levels which will enable our exports to be accepted globally due to the quality of goods and services, added the Minister. He said Made in India should carry the commitment of 130 crore people towards quality, sincerity, customer satisfaction and not be second best.

Commerce and Industry Minister further said that it is an unfortunate reality for India that the Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) entered into with other countries has not led to the growth of India’s trade and business because the poor quality of the products and services that get restricted with non-tariff barriers when exported. He further elaborated on this point with the number of Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) in countries like US (8000), Brazil (3879), China (2872) and India with only 439 TBTs. This illustrates the fact as to the manner in which India and rest of the world are looking at the concept of quality in products and services, said the Minister.

Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA)celebrated its 5th Annual Day in New Delhitoday.The functionwas attended by Secretary WCD, RabindraPanwar, alongwith other senior officials of the Ministry, its associated Statutory/Autonomous Bodies and representatives from the States and Union Territories. As part of the Advocacy, souvenirs to commemorate the Annual Day was unveiled during the event.

Lastyear, CARA has conducted various training programmes and workshops at national and state levels for all the stakeholders of the adoption programme. It has also carried out a number of advocacy programs through various mediums for creating awareness and sensitization of general public and reached out to citizens through various inter-active programmes like Jan Sampark and through Social Media platforms. It is giving emphasis to the rehabilitation of older and special needs children in various Child Care Institutions across the country.

CARA is an apex body of Government of India for promoting and facilitating In-country Adoption and is the designated Central Authority for regulating Inter-countryAdoption. CARA was designated as a Statutory Body on 15 Jan 2016, under the provisions of Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015.

Use of technology in heritage can help to achieve better understanding of our heritage: Shri Prahlad Singh Patel

Posted On: 15 JAN 2020 6:40PM by PIB Delhi The Union Minister of State for Culture and Tourism (IC), ShriPrahlad Singh Patel launcheda month long special exhibition titled Indian Heritage in Digital Space and a two day long first international heritage symposium today in New Delhi. The exhibition was organized in collaboration with Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. The exhibitionwill remain open for public till 15th February, 2020. Secretary of Department of Science & technology Shri Ashutosh Sharmawas also present on this occasion.

Speaking on the occasion ShriPrahlad Singh Patel said that visitors in this exhibition will be able to see the recreations of the socio-cultural life and traditions of Hampi, architectural and conjectural reconstructions of several important structures and experience demystification of many murals. This is a good initiative, use of technology in heritage is very important but it should not be limited to research only, it should reach topeople in such a way that they get a chance to know and understand the unseen aspects of heritage sites easily.

Shri Patel further said that the Prime Minister always says that we have world class heritage and peoplefrom acrossthe globe visit India to see our rich cultural and historical heritage. In such a situation, we should introduce the history and features of these heritages through the use of technology.A person who comes to museum should be guided by use of technology so that it enriches their experience of the visit.

This special exhibition showcase adaptation and infusion of technologies being developed under the Indian Digital Heritage (IDH) initiative of the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India in the cultural heritage domain of the country. The exhibition demonstrate the outcome of two flagship projects viz., A digital mini-spectacle to showcase the glory of Hampiand Augmented reality based interactions with physical models of monuments; that are completed under the DST mentored initiative Indian Heritage in Digital Space (IHDS). These two projects are executed by a multi-disciplinary teams from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, National Institute of Design Bengaluru, CSIR-CBRI Roorkee, Karnataka State Council for Science and Technology, and a women-led, IDH start-up Vizara Technologies, New Delhi. The goals of these projects are to create digital installations using 3D laser scan data, AR, holographic projections and 3D fabrication,to provide interactive and immersive experiences showcasing the glory of Hampi and five Indian monuments namely KashiVishwanath Temple, Varanasi; TajMahal, Agra; Sun Temple,Konark; Ramachandra Temple, Hampi ; and RaniKiVav, Patan .

India’s overall exports (Merchandise and Services combined) in April-December2019-20* are estimated to be USD 397.48 billion, exhibiting a positive growth of 0.93 per cent over the same period last year. Overall imports in April-December 2019-20* are estimated to be USD 455.14 billion, exhibiting a negative growth of (-)5.82 per cent over the same period last year.

*Note: The latest data for services sector released by RBI is for November 2019. The data for December 2019 is an estimation, which will be revised based on RBI’s subsequent release.

I. MERCHANDISE TRADE EXPORTS (including re-exports) Exports inDecember 2019 were USD27.36 billion, as compared to USD27.86 billion in December 2018, exhibiting a negative growth of (-)1.80 per cent. In Rupee terms, exports were Rs. 1,94,764.74 crore in December 2019, as compared to Rs. 1,97,044.76 crore in December 2018, registering a negative growth of (-)1.16 per cent. In December 2019, major commodity groups of export showing positivegrowth over the corresponding month of last year are

Cumulative value of exports for the period April-December 2019-20 was USD239.29 billion (Rs.16,84,558.61 crore) as against USD244.08 billion (Rs.17,02,261.31 crore) during the period April-December 2018-19, registering a negative growth of (-) 1.96 per cent in Dollar terms (negative growth of (-)1.04 per cent in Rupee terms).

Non-petroleumand Non Gems and Jewellery exports in December 2019 were USD21.05 billion, as compared to USD21.16 billion in December 2018, exhibiting a negative growth of (-)0.54 per cent. Non-petroleum and Non Gems and Jewellery exports in April-December 2019-20 were USD177.81 billion, as compared to USD177.65 billion for the corresponding period in 2018-19, anincrease of 0.09 per cent.

IMPORTS Imports in December 2019 were USD38.61 billion (Rs.2,74,883.64 crore), which was 8.83 per cent lower in Dollar terms and 8.24 per cent lower in Rupee terms over imports of USD42.35 billion (Rs.2,99,553.40 crore) in December 2018. Cumulative value of imports for the period April-December 2019-20 was USD357.39 billion (Rs.25,14,783.82 crore), as against USD392.31 billion (Rs.27,37,092.01 crore) during the period April-December 2018-19, registering a negative growth of (-)8.90 per cent in Dollar terms (negative growth of (-)8.12 per cent in Rupee terms). Major commodity groups of import showing negative growth in December 2019 over the corresponding month of last year are:

CRUDE OIL AND NON-OIL IMPORTS: Oil imports inDecember 2019 were USD10.69 billion (Rs. 76,136.69 crore), which was 0.83 percentlower in Dollar terms (0.18 percent lower in Rupee terms), compared to USD10.78 billion (Rs. 76,275.54 crore) in December2018. Oil imports in April-December 2019-20 were USD95.69 billion (Rs. 6,73,447.56 crore) which was 11.78 per cent lower in Dollar terms (11.13 percent lower in Rupee terms) compared to USD108.47 billion (Rs. 7,57,772.55crore), over the same period last year.

In this connection it is mentioned that the global Brent price ($/bbl) has increased by 16.63% in December 2019 vis-à-vis December 2018 as per data available from World Bank.

Non-oil imports inDecember 2019 were estimated at USD27.92billion (Rs. 1,98,746.95 crore) which was 11.56 per cent lower in Dollar terms (10.99 percent lower in Rupee terms), compared to USD31.57billion (Rs. 2,23,277.86 crore) in December 2018. Non-oil imports in April-December 2019-20 were USD261.70 billion (Rs. 18,41,336.26 crore) which was 7.80 per cent lower in Dollar terms (6.97 percent lower in Rupee terms), compared to USD283.84 billion (Rs. 19,79,319.46 crore) in April-December2018-19.

Non-Oil and Non-Gold imports wereUSD25.45 billion in December 2019, recording a negative growth of (-)12.24 per cent, as compared to Non-Oil and Non-Gold importsof USD 29.00 billion in December 2018. Non-Oil and Non-Gold imports wereUSD238.64 billion in April-December 2019-20, recording a negative growth of (-)7.90 per cent, as compared to Non-Oil and Non-Gold importsUSD 259.11 billion in April-December 2018-19.

II. TRADE IN SERVICES EXPORTS (Receipts) As per the latest press release by RBI dated 15thJanuary 2020, exports in November2019 were USD 18.00 billion (Rs. 1,28,584.48 crore) registering a positive growth of 7.91 per cent in dollar terms, vis-à-vis November2018. The estimated value of services export for December 2019* is USD 17.92 billion.

IMPORTS (Payments) As per the latest press release by RBI dated 15th January 2020, imports in November 2019 were USD 11.47 billion (Rs. 81,969.39 crore) registering a positive growth of 13.48 per cent in dollar terms, vis-à-vis November 2018. The estimated value of service Import for December 2019* is USD 11.32 billion.

III.TRADE BALANCE MERCHANDISE: The trade deficit for December 2019 was estimated at USD11.25 billion as against the deficit of USD14.49 billion inDecember 2018. SERVICES: As per RBI’s Press Release dated 15th January2020, the trade balance in Services (i.e. Net Services export) for November, 2019 is estimated at USD6.52 billion.

OVERALL TRADE BALANCE: Taking merchandise and services together, overall trade deficit for April-December 2019-20* is estimated at USD57.66 billion as compared to USD89.46 billion in April-December 2018-19.

What are ‘Classical’ languages in India? Currently, six languages enjoy the ‘Classical’ status: Tamil (declared in 2004), Sanskrit (2005), Kannada (2008), Telugu (2008), Malayalam (2013), and Odia (2014).

How are they classified? Guidelines for declaring a language as ‘Classical’ are: High antiquity of its early texts/recorded history over a period of 1500-2000 years. A body of ancient literature/texts, which is considered a valuable heritage by generations of speakers.

The literary tradition be original and not borrowed from another speech community. The classical language and literature being distinct from modern, there may also be a discontinuity between the classical language and its later forms or its offshoots.

How are the Classical languages promoted? Various benefits: Two major annual international awards for scholars of eminence in classical Indian languages. A Centre of Excellence for studies in Classical Languages is set up. The University Grants Commission is requested to create, to start with at least in the Central Universities, a certain number of Professional Chairs for the Classical Languages so declared.

Now, going a step further, developed a method for reading documents in Bharati script using a multi-lingual optical character recognition (OCR) scheme.

What is Optical Character Recognition (OCR) scheme? It involves first separating (or segmenting) the document into text and non-text. The text is then segmented into paragraphs, sentences words and letters. Each letter has to be recognised as a character in some recognisable format such as ASCII or Unicode. The letter has various components such as the basic consonant, consonant modifiers, vowels etc.

What is Bharati Script? It is an alternative script for the languages of India developed by a team at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Madras lead by Dr. Srinivasa Chakravarthy. The scripts that have been integrated include Devnagari, Bengali, Gurmukhi, Gujarati, Oriya, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Tamil.

Format: The Bharati characters are made up of three tiers stacked vertically. The consonant at the root of the letter is placed in the centre and the modifiers are in the top and bottom tiers.

Bharati has, in general, 17 vowels and 22 consonants. Need for unified script? A common script for the entire country is hoped to bring down many communication barriers in India.

The Centre first prepared such a policy in 2017 and appointed a committee in 2018 to review it.

Overview of the policy: Among other measures, the policy intends to kickstart a registry of rare diseases, which will be maintained by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). According to the policy, rare diseases include genetic diseases, rare cancers, infectious tropical diseases, and degenerative diseases.

Under the policy, there are three categories of rare diseases — requiring one-time curative treatment, diseases that require long-term treatment but where the cost is low, and those needing long-term treatments with high cost. Some of the diseases in the first category include osteopetrosis and immune deficiency disorders, among others.

As per the policy, the assistance of Rs 15 lakh will be provided to patients suffering from rare diseases that require a one-time curative treatment under the Rashtriya Arogya Nidhi scheme. The treatment will be limited to the beneficiaries of Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana.

Background: The policy was created on the direction of the Delhi High Court to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. This was in response to writ petitions for free treatment of such diseases, due to their “prohibitively” high cost of treatment. Hence, a policy was deemed necessary to devise a “multipronged” and “multisectoral” approach to build India’s capacity for tackling such ailments, including by gathering epidemiological data, arriving at a definition and estimating the cost of such diseases.

What is a rare disease? A rare disease, also referred to as an orphan disease, is any disease that affects a small percentage of the population. Most rare diseases are genetic, and are present throughout a person’s entire life, even if symptoms do not immediately appear.

Characteristics: Rare diseases are characterised by a wide diversity of symptoms and signs that vary not only from disease to disease but also from patient to patient suffering from the same disease. Relatively common symptoms can hide underlying rare diseases, leading to misdiagnosis. The most common rare diseases recorded in India are Haemophilia, Thalassemia, sickle-cell anaemia and primary immuno deficiency in children, auto-immune diseases, Lysosomal storage disorders such as Pompe disease, Hirschsprung disease, Gaucher’s disease, Cystic Fibrosis, Hemangiomas and certain forms of muscular dystrophies.

Definition: While there is no universally accepted definition of rare diseases, countries typically arrive at their own descriptions, taking into consideration disease prevalence, its severity and the existence of alternative therapeutic options.

In the US, for instance, a rare disease is defined as a condition that affects fewer than 200,000 people. The same definition is used by the National Organisation for Rare Disorders (NORD).

Concerns and challenges: Rare diseases pose a significant challenge to health care systems because of the difficulty in collecting epidemiological data, which in turn impedes the process of arriving at a disease burden, calculating cost estimations and making correct and timely diagnoses, among other problems. Many cases of rare diseases may be serious, chronic and life-threatening. In some cases, the affected individuals, mostly children, may also suffer from some form of a handicap.

As per the 2017 report, over 50 per cent of new cases are reported in children and these diseases are responsible for 35 per cent of deaths in those below the age of one, 10 per cent of deaths between the ages of one and five, and 12 per cent between five and 15.

Need of nationwide policy: State has responsibility for providing affordable, accessible and reliable health-care services to every citizen. In fact constitution also mentions importance of health-care services under articles like 21, 38 and 47 and thus state cannot evade this responsibility under the pretext of non-justifiability of articles.

Given the low volumes at which the drugs needed to treat such diseases would be consumed, pharmaceutical companies have little commercial incentive to produce them. Thus, a nationwide policy on orphan drugs could incentivize these players.

Even if pharmaceutical companies are incentivized to develop drugs to treat rare diseases, pharmaceutical companies remain beholden to the laws of economics and, given the low demand for orphan drugs, price these drugs as high as they choose to. Hence there has to be regulation of the government in restricting the exorbitant prices of the drugs.

Although proportion of rare diseases is much less than the other diseases, it does not reduce the importance of the life of person affected by rare diseases. Thus national policy would remove this adverse distinction and would make government committed equally to all people.

This is to help States construct infrastructure and enable them to receive ‘Blue Flag’ certification.

Need: The Blue Flag certification requires beaches to create certain infrastructure — portable toilet blocks, grey water treatment plants, a solar power plant, seating facilities, CCTV surveillance and the like. However, India’s CRZ laws don’t allow the construction of such infrastructure on beaches and islands.

Blue flag programme: The Blue Flag Programme for beaches and marinas is run by the international, non-governmental, non-profit organisation FEE (the Foundation for Environmental Education). It started in France in 1985 and has been implemented in Europe since 1987, and in areas outside Europe since 2001, when South Africa joined.

Definition: The ‘Blue Flag’ beach is an ‘eco-tourism model’ and marks out beaches as providing tourists and beachgoers clean and hygienic bathing water, facilities/amenities, a safe and healthy environment, and sustainable development of the area.

Key facts: Japan and South Korea are the only countries in South and southeastern Asia to have Blue Flag beaches. Spain tops the list with 566 such beaches; Greece and France follow with 515 and 395, respectively.

Criteria: There are nearly 33 criteria that must be met to qualify for a Blue Flag certification, such as the water meeting certain quality standards, having waste disposal facilities, being disabled- friendly, have first aid equipment, and no access to pets in the main areas of the beach. Some criteria are voluntary and some compulsory.

Beaches identified in India: 13 pilot beaches have been identified for the certification. These include Ghoghala Beach (Diu), Shivrajpur beach (Gujarat), Bhogave (Maharashtra), Padubidri and Kasarkod (Karnagaka), Kappad beach (Kerala) etc.

Chandrabhaga beachof Odisha’s Konark coast was the first to complete the tag certification process will be the first in Asia to get the Blue Flag certification.

The bank has advised its customers and general public to “think twice before plugging-in their phone at (pubic) charging stations, as hackers can maliciously infect their smartphone with a malware.”

What is Juice Jacking? It is an attack carried out by hackers through a USB charging cable.

How it works? When a user plugs in the charging cable in his mobile’s charging port, and connects it to any of the rigged charging stations installed at public spaces such as airports, train stations, hotels, cafes etc – it gives a back-door entry to hackers into the compromised device. The charging port which is also used for data transfer over the USB, is pointed as the main cause of concern over here.

Threats: Installing malware, cleaning user data, asking ransom in exchange for access to personal data on the phone, personal and financial account hijacking are just some of the many nefarious things that a hacker can do with this unrestricted access. Steps to Mitigate the Risks

In order to guard your phone against Juice Jacking, take these precautionary measures: Avoid using public charging stations. These are soft targets for hackers as they are often kept unguarded and without any surveillance. Always use your own AC charging adapter and cable for charging the device. And be sure to plug it into the AC wall socket, and not the USB socket on the wall. Stay guarded against a stranger’s device and laptop. Do not connect with an unknown person’s laptop or PC for charging your electronic devices and vice-versa.

For emergency situations, buy and carry a certified power bank with enough capacity to take care of your device’s emergency power backup needs. Try to use a cable that can be used only as a charging cable and not a data cable. Frequent travelers should use a USB blocker.

What are they? NEONs are computationally created virtual humans — the word derives from NEO (new) + humaN.

For now the virtual humans can show emotions when manually controlled by their creators. But the idea is for NEONs to become intelligent enough to be fully autonomous, showing emotions, learning skills, creating memories, and being intelligent on their own.

How do they work? There are two core technologies behind his virtual humans. First, there is the proprietary CORE R3 technology that drives the “reality, real time and responsiveness” behind NEONs. The next stage will be SPECTRA, which will complement CORE R3 with the “spectrum of intelligence, learning, emotions and memory”.

How could NEONs be used? NEONs might be the interface for technologies and services. They will answer your queries at a bank, welcome you at a restaurant, or read out the breaking news on television at an unearthly hour. This form of virtual assistance would be more effective, for example, while teaching languages, as NEONs will be capable of understanding and sympathising.

How are NEONs different from Virtual Assistants? Virtual Assistants now learn from all the data they are plugged into. NEONs will be limited to what they know and learn. Their leaning could potentially be limited to the person they are catering to, and maybe her friends — but not the entire Internet. They will not be an interface for you to request a song, rather they will be a friend to speak to and share experiences with, says Star Labs.

It is a volcano on the island of Luzon in Philippines. It erupted recently.

It is classified as a “complex” volcano. A complex volcano, also called a compound volcano, is defined as one that consists of a complex of two or more vents, or a volcano that has an associated volcanic dome, either in its crater or on its flanks.