Current Affairs 30th Aug 2024 for UPSC Prelims Exam

StudyIQ offers Daily Current Affairs and Important News for the UPSC Exam 2024. Check here for Current Affairs of 30th Aug 2024 for the UPSC Exam and State PSC Exam.

Table of Contents

SHe-Box Platform

Context: The Union Ministry of Women and Child Development has launched the SHe-Box portal

About SHe-Box platform

It is a centralised portal for registering and monitoring complaints of sexual harassment of women at the workplace.
Features:
- It will serve as a centralised repository of information related to Internal Committees (ICs) and Local Committees (LCs) formed, for both the government and private sectors.
- It offers a common platform to file complaints, track their status, and ensure a time-bound processing of complaints by ICs.

POSH Act

The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 (POSH Act) addresses sexual harassment in the workplace.
The Supreme Court in the Vishakha and others v State of Rajasthan 1997 case gave ‘Vishakha guidelines’. These guidelines formed the basis for the POSH Act.

Features:

Constitution of Complaint Committees: To receive and redress complaints on sexual harassment at workplace.
- Internal Complaints Committee (IC): Organization that has 10 or more employees.
- Local Complaints Committee (LC): Organisation which has less than 10 employees.

Bio- E3 Initiative

Context: Recently the Union Cabinet cleared a proposal called BioE3 to boost manufacturing in the biotechnology sector.

What is the Bio-E3 Initiative?

Bio-E3 stands for Biotechnology for Economy, Environment and Employment.
Aim: To encourage High-Performance Manufacturing.
Thematic/ Focus Areas:
- High-value bio-based chemicals, biopolymers & enzymes
- Smart proteins & functional foods
- Precision biotherapeutics
- Climate-resilient agriculture
- Carbon capture & its utilisation
- Marine and space research.
Key features of the policy:
To Support innovation-driven Research, Development and entrepreneurship across various thematic sectors.
Establishment of Biomanufacturing, Bio-AI hubs and Biofoundry to commercialise Bio-technology.
- Biofoundary: It is a facility that uses automation and analytics to support the engineering of biological systems.
Encourage Circular Bioeconomy.

Vigyan Dhara Scheme

The Union Cabinet has merged 3 schemes of the Department of Science and Technology (DST) into a unified central sector scheme namely ‘Vigyan Dhara’.
Merged 3 schemes are:
- Science and Technology (S&T) Institutional and Human Capacity Building
- Research and Development
- Innovation, Technology Development and Deployment.
Objective:
- To promote S&T capacity building as well as research, innovation and technology development.
- To strengthen the S&T infrastructure of the country.
Proposed outlay: Rs.10,579.84 Cr. for (2021-22 to 2025-26).

Working Mechanism for Consultation & Coordination on India-China Border Affairs (WMCC)

Context: Recently the 31st Meeting of WMCC was held in Beijing.

What is WMCC?

Established: January 2012
Features:
- It is an institutional mechanism for coordination, control and management of India – China border areas.
- It is a platform to exchange views on strengthening communication and cooperation between the border security personnel of the two sides.
- The meeting of WMCC is held at a mutually convenient date
The mechanism was first suggested by Wen Jiabao (Former Premier of China) in 2010.
Delegation is led by a Joint Secretary level official from the Ministry of External Affairs.