Facts in News

                        Facts in News

Tulip Garden of Jammu and Kashmir

• Located at the foothills of the Zaberwan range with an overview of Dal Lake.
  • The Zabarwan is a short (32 km) sub-mountain range between Pir Panjal and the Great Himalayan Range in the central part of the Kashmir Valley.
  • The Shankaracharya Temple is built on the edge of the central part of the Zabarwan Range.
• The largest tulip garden in Asia and spread over an area of about 30 hectares.
• It was opened in 2007 with the aim to boost floriculture and tourism in Kashmir Valley.
• The garden is built on a sloping ground in a terraced fashion consisting of seven terraces.
• It has 15 lakh flowers of more than 64 varieties with predominantly tulips along with hyacinths, daffodils and ranunculus.
• Tulip Festival is organised at the onset of the spring, and is an annual celebration as part of tourism efforts by the government of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K).

Atal Beemit Vyakti Kalyan Yojana (ABVKY)

• It was introduced by the Employees’ State Insurance Corporation (ESIC).
• It is a once in a lifetime welfare measure for employees covered under Section 2(9) of the ESI Act, 1948.
• It aims to provide relief to the Insured Persons (IPs) who have become unemployed.
• It was introduced on 1st July 2018 on a pilot basis for two years and has now been extended for another year till 30th June 2021.
• Major Revised Provisions
  • Rate of unemployment relief has been enhanced to 50 per cent of wages from an earlier rate of 25 per cent.
  • Insured person should have been in insurable employment for minimum two years immediately before unemployment and should have contributed for not less than 78 days in one of the remaining three contribution periods. Earlier this condition was a minimum contribution of 78 days in four contribution periods.
  • Claim shall become due 30 days after the date of unemployment. Earlier, this period was 90 days.
  • The claim of the IP need not be forwarded by the employer and may be submitted by an IP in the prescribed claim form duly completed online or directly to the branch office.

Suez Canal

• A human-made waterway, it is one of the world’s most heavily used shipping lanes.
  • It carries over 12% of world trade by volume and 30% of all container ships pass through it.
• Built in 1869, it provides a major shortcut for ships moving between Europe and Asia, who before its construction had to sail around Africa to complete the same journey.
• It connects the Mediterranean and the Red Sea through Egypt and extends 193 km between Port Said in the north and Port Suez in the south.
• It was controlled by British and French interests in its initial years but was nationalised in 1956 by Egypt’s then leader Gamal Abdel Nasser.
  • It is a major source of income for Egypt’s economy, which earned USD 5.61 billion in revenues from it in 2020.

                                      (Image Courtesy: Britannica)

Digital Service Tax

• The DST taxes companies with no permanent establishment in India.
• India’s 2 per cent DST is levied on revenues generated from digital services offered in India, including digital platform services, digital content sales, and data-related services.
• India was one of the first countries in the world to introduce a 6 per cent equalisation levy in 2016, but the levy was restricted to online advertisement services (commonly known as “digital advertising taxes” or “DATs”).
• The 2020 DST, however, is broader in scope and extends to all kinds of digital transactions.

National Mission On Libraries

• It is the initiative of the Ministry of Culture to modernise and digitally link public libraries across the country.
•  It  would provide digital resources by digitizing the relevant reading material in different languages, which would be shared at all levels.
• It consists of four components:
  • Creation of National Virtual Library of India (NVLI)
  • Setting up of NML model libraries.
  • Qualitative and quantitative survey of libraries
  • Capacity building.

Objectives

• To create a world class library system, foster reading habits, facilitate research work and provide information to people in a timely and convenient manner .

What is Shigmo?

• The Shigmo festival, also known as Shigmotsav is a spring festival celebrated in Goa.
• It is the celebration of a ‘rich, golden harvest of paddy’ by the tribal communities of Goa.
  • Agricultural communities including the Kunbis, Gawdas and Velips celebrate the festival .

• Shigmo celebrations last over a fortnight in the months of Phalgun-Chaitra months of the Hindu calendar that correspond with March-April every year.
• The festival begins with ‘Naman’ that is the invocation of the local folk deities on the village ‘maand’ or the village stage to the beats of percussion instruments like the Ghumat, Dhol, Mhadle and Tashe by the male folk
• The celebration is replete with traditional, colourful costumes, mythological installations, painted faces and costumes of various hues.

                                  Image Source :Outlook