Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 08 March 2021

::NATIONAL::

It is located in Seoni and Chhindwara, districts of Madhya Pradesh.
It shares a boundary with Maharashtra.It has two divisions: Priyadarshini National Park and Mowgli Pench Sanctuary.
The river- Pench divides it in almost 2 equal halves (eastern and western).
This place has been mentioned in "The Jungle Book" by Rudyard Kipling.
Flora: Mahua, White Kulu, Salai, Saja, Bijiyasal, Dhaora, Amaltas etc.
Fauna: Sher Khans (BengalTigers), Chital, Jungle Cat, Wolf, Indian Leopard, Gaur, Crow Pheasant, Indian Roller,Red-Vented Bulbul.

The Jharkhand government for the first time presented an outcome-based budget.
Outcome-Based Budget measures the outcomes of all government programmes and whether the money has been spent for the purpose it was sanctioned.
Under this, each ministry handling a sector is required to present a preliminary outcome budget to the Ministry of Finance, which compiles them.
This helps in establishing correlation between outlay, output and outcome of budget.

Prime Minister welcomed Sweden's decision to join International Solar Alliance (ISA).
ISA is a treaty based inter-governmental organization working to create a global market system to tap the benefits of solar power and promote clean energy applications.
Leaders also noted the growing member-ship of the India-Sweden joint initiative - Leadership Group on Indus-tryTransition (Lead IT).
Lead IT gathers countries and companies that are committed to reaching net zero carbon emissions from industry by 2050.
It was launched during 2019 UN Climate Action Summit in New York.

El Salvador has officially been declared malaria-free after no reports of new indigenous cases of the disease since 2017.
Certification of malaria elimination is granted by WHO when a country has proven, beyond reasonable doubt, that the chain of indigenous transmission has been interrupted nationwide for at least the previous 3 consecutive years.
Globally, a total of 38 countries and territories have reached this milestone.
El Salvador is first Central American country.

Assam sends the first consignment of ‘red rice’ was flagged off to the USA.
Iron rich ‘red rice’ is grown in Brahmaputra valley of Assam, without the use of any chemical fertilizer.
The rice variety is referred as ‘Bao-dhaan’, which is an integral part of the Assamese food.
The red rice is being sourced by leading rice exporter – LT Foods.

It is launched by Ministry of Science and Technology. The mission will be implemented in 21 states.
Under this available knowledge base in CSIR Institutes will be utilized and leveraged to help Indian farmers and industry reposition itself to meet the import requirements.

Need:

Despite diverse agro-climatic and edaphic conditions, India shares only 0.6 % of global floriculture market.
At least 1200 million USD worth of floriculture products are being imported by India every year from different countries.
Floriculture is branch of ornamental horticulture concerned with growing and marketing flowers and ornamental plants and flower arrangement.