Swachh Shehar Jodi (SSJ) Initiative
Syllabus: GS2/Governance
Context
- The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) launched the Swachh Shehar Jodi (SSJ) initiative.
Swachh Shehar Jodi (SSJ)
- It is a structured mentorship and collaborative action program under the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA).
- Involves 72 mentor cities paired with around 200 mentee cities based on their performance in Swachh Survekshan rankings.
- Aim: To promote knowledge sharing, peer learning, and replication of best practices in urban sanitation and waste management.
Key Features:
- Mentorship Model: Top-performing cities (mentors) guide low-performing cities (mentees). Focus on experience sharing, action planning, and handholding.
- Time-bound Program: 100-day program to demonstrate the impact of city-to-city mentorship. Each mentor–mentee pair develops action plans with defined milestones.
- Nationwide Engagement:Nearly 300 MoUs signed across participating cities in the presence of city officials and political leaders.
- The initiative creates a dynamic platform for collaboration, which will be evaluated in Swachh Survekshan 2026.
Significance
- One of the largest structured mentorship frameworks in India’s urban waste management sector.
- Facilitates replication of successful sanitation practices across urban India, fostering sustainable urban transformation.
Source: IE
Sahyog Portal
Syllabus:GS2/Governance
In News
- The Karnataka High Court dismissed X Corp’s challenge to the Union government’s Sahyog portal, affirming its legality under Section 79(3)(b) of the IT Act, 2000.
Sahyog portal
- It was launched by the Ministry of Home Affairs in October 2024 and operated by the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C).
- It serves as a centralized system for issuing takedown orders to internet intermediaries under Section 79 of the IT Act.
- The Act provides “safe harbour” protection to platforms for user-generated content, this immunity is conditional—intermediaries must remove unlawful content upon receiving official notice under Section 79(3)(b).
- Sahyog automates this process and was first revealed during a Delhi High Court case involving a missing person.
Source :TH
The Updated Rangarajan Poverty Line Estimation
Syllabus: GS3/ Economy
Context
- Economists from the RBI have updated the poverty line established by the Rangarajan Committee in 2014, for 20 major states of India using the latest Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES) 2022-23.
What is a Poverty Line?
- A poverty line is a threshold level of income or consumption used to determine whether an individual or household is poor.
- Anyone living below this threshold is considered unable to afford basic necessities such as food, shelter, clothing, education, and healthcare.
- It helps the government;
- to gauge the extent of poverty and shape welfare policies for the poor.
- to understand whether a set of policies has actually worked over time to reduce poverty and improve wellbeing.
Rangarajan Committee (2014)
- It was constituted in 2012 and submitted its report in 2014.
- The Committee recommended separate consumption baskets for rural and urban areas.
- The Rangarajan Committee set the rural poverty line at ₹972 per month (₹32 per day).
- The urban poverty line was set at ₹1,407 per month (₹47 per day).
- These estimates pegged 29.5 percent of the Indian population as poor in 2011-12.
- The government did not take a call on the report of the Rangarajan Committee, therefore, poverty is measured using the Tendulkar poverty line.
Key findings of latest update
- Odisha and Bihar have made the biggest improvement over the last decade.
- Odisha: Rural poverty fell from 47.8% to 8.6%.
- Bihar: Urban poverty fell from 50.8% to 9.1%.
- Lowest Rural Poverty (2022-23): Himachal Pradesh (0.4%).
- Lowest Urban Poverty (2022-23): Tamil Nadu (1.9%).
- Highest Poverty: Chhattisgarh (Rural 25.1%, Urban 13.3%).
Source: IE
Ways and Means Advances (WMA)
Syllabus :GS3/Economy
In News
- The RBI has set the Ways and Means Advances (WMA) limit for the central government at ₹50,000 crore for the second half of FY 2025-26.
Ways and Means Advances (WMA)
- The WMA is a temporary advance given by the RBI to the central, state governments and Union Territories to tide over any mismatch in receipts and payments.
- The WMA has been decided in consultation with the Central government.
Source :Air
SODAR System
Syllabus: GS3/Science and Technology
Context
- On the occasion of CSIR’s Foundation Day, (26th September), SODAR (Sound Detection and Ranging) system facility was inaugurated at India Meteorological Department, (IMD).
About
- It is designed & developed by CSIR–Advanced Materials and Processes Research Institute (AMPRI), Bhopal.
- The MoU facilitates the sharing of SODAR system data across various locations for forecasting, validation, and research initiatives.
- Expected to advance meteorology, climate science, environmental studies, and benefit research communities and national preparedness.
Sound Detection and Ranging (SODAR)
- Purpose: Probes the lower atmosphere (up to 1 km) to study thermal structure, turbulence, inversion layers, fog, and plumes.
- Useful in air quality modeling, forecasting, and interpretation of meteorological data.
- Working Principle: Acoustic pulses transmitted vertically through an antenna.
- Pulses interact with thermal inhomogeneities and wind, and get scattered.
- Backscattered pulses received by the same antenna in a monostatic system.
- Signals are amplified, processed, and displayed as an echogram.
- Applications:
- Meteorology: Measuring vertical profiles of wind, temperature, and turbulence.
- Air Pollution Monitoring: Studying how pollutants disperse in the atmosphere.
- Renewable Energy: Assessing wind profiles for wind turbine siting.
- Climate Research: Studying boundary layer dynamics.
Source: IE
Red Sanders (Pterocarpus santalinus)
Syllabus: GS3/ Environment
Context
- The National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) has sanctioned an amount of ₹82 lakh to the Andhra Pradesh Biodiversity Board for the conservation of Red Sanders (Pterocarpus santalinus).
- The National Biodiversity Authority is a statutory authority set up under India’s Biological Diversity Act (2002).
About
- Red sanders are native to Southern Eastern Ghats, primarily found in the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.
- They are high in demand across Asia, particularly in China and Japan, for use in cosmetics and medicinal products as well as for making furniture, woodcraft and musical instruments.
- It is a slow-growing tree species, taking 25-40 years to mature, which makes recovery from over-harvesting difficult.
- Conservation Status:
- It is under ‘endangered list’ in the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List.
- It is listed in Appendix-II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wildlife Fauna and Flora (CITES).
- Listed under Schedule IV of The Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.
Source: PIB
