41 Agriculture Information Centers Established in Agriculture Universities and ICAR Institutions

The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) has established 44 Agricultural Technology Information Centres (ATICs) in 28 Agricultural Universities and 16 ICAR Institutes in the country. The ICAR has also created a network of 630 Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK) in the country to facilitate farmers’ access to agricultural technology generated by National Agricultural Research System.

The Department of Agriculture & Cooperation is implementing Kisan Call Centre (KCC) programme under which Agriculture related information is provided to the farmers in 22 regional languages through a countrywide common toll free number 1800-180-1551 covering all the States and Union Territory of India. The KCCs established at 13 locations in the country operate from 6.00AM to 10.00 PM on all 365 days in a year. The Kisan Call Centre located in Kanpur district of Uttar Pradesh caters to all the farmers of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

Castle Naggar in Himachal Pradesh was given Heritage Status

The Castle Naggar, Himachal Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation's prime hotel in the picturesque Kullu valley, was notified under the heritage status by the Union Tourism ministry on 23 August 2012. Naggar was the capital of the erstwhile Kullu state for about 1460 years.

The castle was built by Raja Sidhi Singh in the 16th century. The castle has traditional architecture called Kathloonmi, which uses a combination of stones and wooden beams. The castle was handed over to state-owned HPTDC in 1978 to be run as a hotel.

Indian Magsaysay Award Winners

Name	Year Awarded	Category
Vinoba Bhave	1958	Community Leadership
Chintaman Deshmukh	1959	Government Services
Amitabha Chowdhury	1961	Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts
Mother Teresa	1962	Peace and International Understanding
Dara Khurody	1963	Community Leadership
Verghese Kurien	1963	Community Leadership
Tribhuvandas Patel	1963	Community Leadership
Welthy Fisher	1964	Peace and International Understanding
Jayaprakash Narayan	1965	Public Service
Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay	1966	Community Leadership
Satyajit Ray	1967	Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts
Moncompu Sambasivan Swaminathan	1971	Community Leadership
M. S. Subbulakshmi	1974	Public Service
Boobli George Verghese	1975	Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts
Henning Holck-Larsen	1976	Peace and International Understanding
Sombhu Mitra	1976	Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts
Ela Ramesh Bhatt	1977	Community Leadership
Mabelle Arole	1979	Community Leadership
Rajanikant Arole	1979	Community Leadership
Gour Kishore Ghosh	1981	Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts
Pramod Karan Sethi	1981	Community Leadership
Chandi Prasad Bhatt	1982	Community Leadership
Manibhai Desai	1982	Public Service
Arun Shourie	1982	Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts
Rasipuram Lakshman	1984	Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts
Muralidhar Amte	1985	Public Service
Lakshmi Chand Jain	1989	Public Service
K. V. Subbanna	1991	Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts
Ravi Shankar	1992	Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts
Banoo Jehangir Coyaji	1993	Public Service
Kiran Bedi	1994	Government Services
Pandurang Athavale	1996	Community Leadership
Tirunellai Seshan	1996	Government Services
Mahasweta Devi	1997	Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts
Mahesh Chander Mehta	1997	Public Service
Jockin Arputham	2000	Peace and International Understanding
Aruna Roy	2000	Community Leadership
Rajendra Singh	2001	Community Leadership
Sandeep Pandey	2002	Emergent Leadership
James Michael Lyngdoh	2003	Government Services
Shantha Sinha	2003	Community Leadership
Laxminarayan Ramdas	2004	Peace and International Understanding
V. Shantha	2005	Public Service
Arvind Kejriwal	2006	Emergent Leadership
Palagummi Sainath	2007	Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts
Mandakini Amte	2008	Community Leadership
Prakash Amte	2008	Community Leadership
Deep Joshi	2009	Community Leadership
Neelima Mishra	2011	Emergent Leadership
Harish Hande	2011	Emergent Leadership
Kulandei Francis	2012	Community Leadership

List of Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Awardees

The Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna (RGKR) is India’s highest honour given for achievement in sports. The words "Khel Ratna" literally mean "sports gem" in Hindi. The award is named after the late Rajiv Gandhi, former Prime Minister of India. It carries a medal, a scroll of honour and a substantial cash component. Up to 2004–05, the cash component was Rs. 500,000/- (c.11,500 USD).The money has been increased from Rs. 500,000 to Rs. 750,000.

 List of Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Awardees

Year	Name of the Sportsperson(s)	Sport Discipline
1991–92	Viswanathan Anand	Chess
1992–93	Geet Sethi	Billiards
1993–94	Not Conferred
1994–95	Cdr. Homi D. Motivala (Joint)	Yachting (Team Event)
	Lt. Cdr. P. K. Garg (Joint)
1995–96	Karnam Malleswari	Weightlifting
1996–97	Nameirakpam Kunjarani (Joint)	Weightlifting
	Leander Paes (Joint)	Tennis
1997–98	Sachin Tendulkar	Cricket
1998–99	Jyotirmoyee Sikdar	Athletics
1999–2000	Dhanraj Pillay	Hockey
2000–01	Pullela Gopichand	Badminton
2001–02	Abhinav Bindra	Shooting
2002–03	Anjali Ved Pathak Bhagwat(Joint)	Shooting
	K. M. Beenamol (Joint)	Athletics
2003–04	Anju Bobby George	Athletics
2004–05	Lt. Col Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore	Shooting
2005–06	Pankaj Advani	Billiards and Snooker
2006–07	Manavjit Singh Sandhu	Shooting
2007–08	Mahendra Singh Dhoni	Cricket
2008–09	Mary Kom (Joint)	Boxing
	Vijender Singh (Joint)	Boxing
	Sushil Kumar (Joint)	Wrestling
2009–10	Saina Nehwal	Badminton
2010–11	Gagan Narang	Shooting
2011–12	Vijay Kumar (Joint)	Shooting
	Yogeshwar Dutt (Joint)	Wrestling

Welfare Schemes for Women

Many welfare schemes for women are implemented by Government of India, State Governments and Union Territory Administrations. The details of major schemes under implementation by Ministry of Women and Child Development for the welfare of women are as under :

i. RAJIV GANDHI NATIONAL CRECHE SCHEME FOR THE CHILDREN OF WORKING MOTHERS (RGNCS) provides day care facilities to the children in the age group 0-6 years from families with monthly income of less than 12000/-. In addition to being a safe space for the children, the crèches provide services such as supplementary nutrition, pre-school education and emergency health care, etc.

ii. CENTRAL SOCIAL WELFARE BOARD: The main women welfare related schemes and programmes being implemented by CSWB are family counselling centres, awareness generation programme and condensed courses of education for women.

iii. NATIONAL MISSION FOR EMPOWERMENT OF WOMEN (NMEW) is an initiative of the Government of India for empowering women holistically. It is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme sanctioned in April 2011 and acts as an umbrella Mission with a mandate to strengthen inter-sectoral convergence.

iv. WORKING WOMEN’S HOSTEL (WWH) Scheme envisages provision of safe and affordable hostel accommodation to working women, single working women, women working at places away from their home-towns and for women being trained for employment.

v. SUPPORT TO TRAINING AND EMPLOYMENT PROGRAMME (STEP) for Women was launched as a Central Sector Scheme during 1986-87. It aims at making a significant impact on women by upgrading skills for self and wage employment. The target group includes the marginalized assetless rural women and urban poor.

vi. RASHTRIYA MAHILA KOSH (RMK) with a corpus of Rs.100 crore extends micro-finance services to bring about the socio-economic upliftment of poor women.

vii. INDIRA GANDHI MATRITVA SAHYOG YOJANA (IGMSY) is a Conditional Cash Transfer scheme for pregnant and lactating (P&L) women introduced in the October 2010 to contribute to better enabling environment by providing cash incentives for improved health and nutrition to pregnant and nursing mothers.

viii. SWADHAR SCHEME: The Ministry of Women and Child Development had been administering Swadhar scheme since 2001 for Women in difficult circumstances. Under the Scheme, temporary accommodation, maintenance and rehabilitative services are provided to women and girls rendered homeless due to family discord, crime, violence, mental stress, social ostracism. Another scheme with similar objectives/target groups namely Short Stay Home (SSH) is being implemented by Central Social Welfare Board.

ix. UJJAWALA is a comprehensive scheme for prevention of trafficking and rescue, rehabilitation and reintegration of victims of trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation.

Integrated Nutrient Management (Fertilizers)

The main objective of Integrated Nutrient Management (INM) Division is to ensure adequate availability of quality fertilizers to farmers through periodical demand assessment and timely supply, promoting integrated nutrient management, which is soil test-based judicious and balanced use of chemical fertilizers in conjunction with organic manures and bio-fertilizers, promotion of organic farming and ensuring quality control of fertilizers through implementation of Fertilizer (Control) Order, 1985.

Fertiliser Consumption

India is the third largest producer and consumer of fertilizers in the world after China and the USA. Against 21.65 million tonnes of fertilizer nutrients (NPK) consumed during 2006-07, the nutrient consumption is 22.57 million tonnes during 2007-08. The consumption of major fertilizers namely, Urea, DAP, MOP, SSP and Complexes were 25.96, 7.50, 2.88, 2.29 and 6.57 million tonnes during 2007-08. India is by and large self sufficient in respect of Urea and about 90 per cent in case of DAP. The all India average fertilizer consumption is 116.5 kg/ha of NPK nutrients, though there is wide variation from state to state varying from 212.7 kg/ha in Punjab, 208.2 kg/ha in Andhra Pradesh, 190.9 kg/ha in Haryana to less than 5 kg/ha in States like Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland etc. Considering the skewed pattern of fertilizer use, Government of India is promoting balanced and integrated use of fertilizer nutrient through various initiatives. As a result, NPK consumption ration has now improved to 5.5:2.1:1 during 2007-08 from 7.0:2.7:1 during 2000-01.

Price of Fertilizers

Presently urea is the only fertilizer which is under Statutory Price Control. To ensure adequate availability of fertilizers to farmers at reasonable rates, subsidy is provided by Government of India. Urea, the most consumed fertilizers, is subsidized under the New Urea Pricing Scheme, whereas P&K fertilizers, which are decontrolled, are covered under the Concession Scheme. The policy for uniform freight subsidy on all fertilizers under the fertilizer subsidy regime is also implemented.

Buffer Stocking of P&K Fertilizers

A buffer stock of limited quantity of Di-Ammonium Phosphate (DAP) and Muriate of Potash (MOP) is being maintained at strategic locations to met emergent requirements. These stocks are in the nature of rolling stocks and are replenished when depleted. Besides meeting emergent needs, the Buffer Stock also helps to meet requirements of States which have low demand and hence sometimes find it difficult to induce suppliers to move fertilizers in small quantities.

Fertiliser Quality Control

Fertilizer is the most critical and costly input for sustaining agricultural production and ensuring food security of the country. The Government ensures the quality of fertilizers through Fertilizer Control Order (FCO), issued under Essential Commodities Act, 1955 to regulate, the trade, price, quality and distribution of fertilizers in the country. The State Governments are the enforcement agencies for implementation of the provisions of FCO, 1985. The Order strictly prohibits the manufacture, import and sale of any fertilizer, which does not meet prescribe standards. The FCO provides for compulsory registration of fertilizer manufacturers, importers and dealers, specifications of all fertilizes manufactured/imported and sold in the country, regulation on manufacture of fertilizer mixtures, packing and marking on the fertilizer bags, appointment of enforcement agencies, setting up of quality control laboratories and prohibition on manufacture/import and sale of non-standard/spurious/adulterated fertilizers. To check the quality of fertilizes sold in the country, there are 71 Fertilizer Quality Control Laboratories at present, which includes 4 Central Government laboratories namely; Central Fertilizer Quality Control & Traiing Institute, Faridabad and is three Regional Laboratories at Chennai, Navi Mumbai and Kalyani (Near Kolkata). These laboratories have a total annual analyzing capacity of 1.31 lakh samples.

Promotion of Integrated Nutrient Management (INM)

The Government is promoting soil test-based balanced and judicious use of chemical fertilizers, biofertilizers and locally available organic manures like farmyard manure, compost, nadep compost, vermi compost and green manure to maintain soil health and its productivity. A Centrally Sponsored Scheme, "National Project on Management of Soil Health and Fertility" (NPMSF) has been approved during 2008-09 with an outlay of Rs.429.85 crores for the remaining period of XI Plan. The two existing schemes namely: i) centrally sponsored scheme of Balanced and Integrated Use of Fertilizers and ii) Central Sector Scheme "Strengthening of Central Fertilizer and Quality Control & Traiing Institutes and its Regional Labs. have been subsumed in the new scheme w.e.f. 1.4.2009. The components of the new scheme include setting up of 500 new soil testing laboratories, strengthening of the existing 315 soil testing laboratories, setting up of 250 mobile soil testing laboratories, promotion of organic manures, soil amendments and distribution of micro nutrients, setting up of 20 new fertilizers quality control laboratories and strengthening of 63 existing fertilizer quality control laboratories during 11th Plan.
There are 686 Soil Testing Laboratories (2007-08) in India. These include 560 static and 126 mobile Laboratories maintained by State Governments and fertilizer industry with an annual analyzing capacity of about 7 million soil samples. During 2008-09, an amount of Rs.16.63 crore has been released under NPMSF for 42 new Static Soil Testing Laboratories (STLs), 44 Mobile Soil Testing Laboratories (MSTLs), strengthening of 39 existing soil testing laboratories, 2 new fertilizer quality control laboratories and strengthening of 19 existing fertilizers quality control laboratories (FQCLs) in 16 States.

National Project on Organic Farming

With the view to promote organic farming practices to reduce the burden on Chemical Fertilizers, to ensure effective utilization of farm resources and to cater domestic and international growing Organic Food Market, a National Project on Organic Farming was launched during 10th Plan with an outlay of Rs.115.00 crores. The earlier scheme "National Project on Development and Use of Biofertilizers" has been merged with the "National Project on Organic Farming ". The main objective of the scheme includes:

• Capacity Building through Service Providers.
• Financial and Technical support for setting up of organic input production unit such as Fruits and Vegetable market waste compost, Biofertilizers and biopesticides and Vermiculture hatcheries.
• Human resource development through training and demonstration.
• Awareness creation and market development.
• Quality Control of Organic Inputs.

As a continuing efforts from previous scheme for promotion of bio-fertilizers there are around 169 bio-fertilizer production units in the country with installed capacity of 67000 MT. and annual production of more than 20 thousand ton of bio-fertilizers and more than 18800 ton of other inoculants including biopesticides.
Under the scheme a capacity has also been created for processing of 708 tons of agricultural waste per day in to compost, 5606 MT of bio-fertilizers and more than 17000 ton of vermiculture and vermicompost. Since the launch of the scheme, the area under certified organic farming has increased 20 fold from 42000 ha (2003-04) to 865,000 ha (2007-08). The organic food production has increased from 4.09 lakh ton in 2006-07 to 9.02 lakh ton during 2007-08.

Genetics

Genetics (from Ancient Greek genetikos, “genitive” and that from genesis, “origin”), a discipline of biology, is the science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms. Genetics deals with the molecular structure and function of genes, with gene behavior in the context of a cell or organism (e.g. dominance and epigenetics), with patterns of inheritance from parent to offspring, and with gene distribution, variation and change in populations. Given that genes are universal to living organisms, genetics can be applied to the study of all living systems, from viruses and bacteria, through plants (especially crops) and domestic animals, to humans (as in medical genetics).
The fact that living things inherit traits from their parents has been used since prehistoric times to improve crop plants and animals through selective breeding. However, the modern science of genetics, which seeks to understand the process of inheritance, only began with the work of Gregor Mendel in the mid-19th
century. Although he did not know the physical basis for heredity, Mendel observed that organisms inherit traits via discrete units of inheritance, which are now called genes. Genes correspond to regions within DNA, a molecule composed of a chain of four different types of nucleotides: the sequence of these nucleotides is the genetic information organisms inherit. DNA naturally occurs in a double stranded form, with nucleotides on each strand complementary to each other. Each strand can act as a template for creating a new partner strand.
This is the physical method for making copies of genes that can be inherited. The sequence of nucleotides in a gene is translated by cells to produce a chain of amino acids, creating proteins— the order of amino acids in a protein corresponds to the order of nucleotides in the gene. This relationship between nucleotide sequence and amino acid sequence is known as the genetic code. The amino acids in a protein determine how it folds into a three-dimensional shape; this structure is, in turn, responsible for the protein’s function. Proteins carry out almost all the functions needed for cells to live. A change to the DNA in a gene can change a protein’s amino acids, changing its shape and function: this can have a dramatic effect in the cell and on the organism as a whole. Although genetics plays a large role in the appearance and behavior of organisms, it is the combination of genetics with what an organism experiences that determines the ultimate outcome. For example, while genes play a role in determining an organism’s size, the nutrition and health it experiences after inception also have a large effect.

Carbon Dating

Carbon dating is a radiometric dating method that uses the naturally occurring radioisotope carbon-14 (14C) to estimate the age of carbonbearing materials up to about 58,000 to 62,000 years. Raw, i.e. uncalibrated, radiocarbon ages are usually reported in radiocarbon years “Before Present” (BP), “Present” being defined as 1950. Such raw ages can be calibrated to give calendar dates.
One of the most frequent uses of radiocarbon dating is to estimate the age of organic remains from archaeological sites. When plants fix atmospheric carbon dioxide  into organic material during photosynthesis they incorporate a quantity of 14C that approximately matches the level of this isotope in the atmosphere (a small difference occurs because of isotope fractionation, but this is corrected after laboratory analysis[citation needed]). After plants die or they are consumed by other organisms (for example, by humans or other animals) the 14C fraction of this organic material declines at a fixed exponential rate due to the radioactive decay of 14C. Comparing the remaining 14C fraction of a sample to that expected from atmospheric 14C allows the age of the sample to be estimated.
The technique of radiocarbon dating was developed by Willard Libby and his colleagues at the University of Chicago in 1949. Emilio Segrè asserted in his autobiography that Enrico Fermi suggested the concept to Libby in a seminar at Chicago that year. Libby estimated that the steady state radioactivity concentration of exchangeable carbon-14 would be about 14 disintegrations per minute (dpm) per gram.
In 1960, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry for this work. He first demonstrated the accuracy of radiocarbon dating by accurately estimating the age of wood from an ancient Egyptian royal barge for which the age was known from historical documents.

Earth Basic Facts

Earth’s Circumference at the Equator: 24,901.55 miles (40,075.16 km)

Earth’s Circumference Between the North and South Poles: 24,859.82 miles (40,008 km)

Earth’s Diameter at the Equator: 7,926.28 miles (12,756.1 km)

Earth’s Diameter at the Poles: 7,899.80 miles (12,713.5 km)

Average Distance from the Earth to the Sun: 93,020,000 miles (149,669,180 km)

Average Distance from the Earth to the Moon: 238,857 miles (384,403.1 km)

Highest Elevation on Earth - Mt. Everest, Asia: 29,035 feet (8850 m)

Tallest Mountain on Earth from Base to Peak - Mauna Kea, Hawaii: 33,480 feet (rising to 13,796 feet above sea level) (10204 m; 4205 m)

Point Farthest From the Center of the Earth - The peak of the volcano Chimborazo in Ecuador at 20,561 feet (6267 m) is farthest from the center of the earth due to its location near the equator, and the oblateness of the Earth.

Lowest Elevation on Land - Dead Sea: 1369 feet below sea level (417.27 m)

Deepest Point in the Ocean - Challenger Deep, Mariana Trench, Western Pacific Ocean: 35,840 feet (10924 m)

Highest Temperature Recorded: 135.8°F - Al Aziziyah, Libya, September 13, 1922 (57.7°C)

 Lowest Temperature Recorded: -128.5°F - Vostok, Antarctica, July 21, 1983 (-89.2°C)

Water vs. Land: 70.8% Water, 29.2% Land

Age of the Earth: 4.5 to 4.6 billion years

Atmosphere Content: 77% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, and traces of argon, carbon dioxide and water

Revolution around Sun: 365.2425 days

Chemical Composition of the Earth:
34.6% Iron,
29.5% Oxygen,
15.2% Silicon,
12.7% Magnesium,
2.4% Nickel,
1.9% Sulfur,
0.05% Titanium

Rotation on Axis: 23 hours and 56 minutes and 04.09053 seconds. But, it takes an additional four minutes for the earth to revolve to the same position as the day before relative to the sun (i.e. 24 hours).

Summer Olympics - 27 July 2012

The 2012 Summer Olympic Games, officially known as the Games of the XXX Olympiad, are scheduled to take place in London, England, United Kingdom, from 27 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to officially host the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so
in 1908 and in 1948. London was selected as the host city on 6 July 2005 during the 117th IOC Session in
Singapore, defeating Moscow, New York City, Madrid and Paris after four rounds of voting. The successful bid was headed by former Olympic champion Sebastian Coe.
The Olympics prompted a redevelopment of many of the areas of London in which the games are to be held – particularly themed towards sustainability. While the budgetary considerations have generated some criticism, the Games will make use of many venues which were already in place before the bid, including Wembley Stadium, Wembley Arena, Wimbledon All England Club, Lord’s Cricket Ground, The O2 Arena, Earls Court Exhibition Centre, Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy, and the Excel Centre.