Articles covered:

• National Youth Day
• DRDO conducts successful flight-test of New Generation AKASH missile off Odisha coast
• ‘ANUBHAV Awards Scheme, 2024’
• PM presents sacred Chadar to be placed during the Urs of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti at Ajmer Sharif Dargah
• Mamata asks the PM to officially list Bengali as ‘classical language’
• Electoral gender ratio in Andhra Pradesh rises to 1,036 in a decade

National Youth Day:

• India is celebrating the National Youth Day today in honour of Swami Vivekananda, whose birth anniversary falls on January 12.
• Since 1984, the nation has marked the day by urging the youth to live up to the values, principles and beliefs that Vivekananda embraced.
• As a part of National Youth Day celebrations, India organises an annual National Youth Festival from January 12 to 16.
• The theme of this year’s festival is “Viksit Bharat@ 2047: Yuva ke liye, yuva ke dwara”.

About Swami Vivekananda:

• Swami Vivekananda (1863 – 1902), born Narendranath Datta,was a Hindu monk and one of the most celebrated spiritual leaders of India.
• He was the foremost disciple of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and a world spokesperson for Vedanta.
• He was hailed as a Dhyana Sidha, a meditation expert, by his guru Ramakrishna Paramhamsa.
• He attempted to combine Indian spirituality with Western material progress, maintaining that the two supplemented and complemented one another.
• He believed that the path to self-purification is through helping others. He encouraged people to engage in selfless service and to work towards the betterment of society.
• Through his teachings on the four yogas, the harmony of religions, divinity of the soul, and serving humanity as God, Vivekananda gave spiritual aspirants paths to that realisation.
• Vivekananda represented Hinduism at the 1893 World’s Parliament of Religions convened during the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago.
• After his first visit to the West, Swami Vivekananda went back to India and founded the Ramakrishna Order at Belur outside of Kolkata in 1897.

Ramakrishna Order:

• The Ramakrishna Order, with headquarters in Kolkata, is one of the largest and most respected religious orders in India today.
• The Order was inspired by the great Bengali saint, Sri Ramakrishna.
• Shortly before his death in 1886, Ramakrishna encouraged his young disciples to formally renounce the world by giving them the ochre cloth of renunciation.
• He entrusted the care of these young men to his foremost disciple, Swami Vivekananda, who later, in 1897, founded the Ramakrishna Order.
• The Ramakrishna Order was formed along two parallel lines: The Ramakrishna Math, which is primarily dedicated to spiritual development, and the Ramakrishna Mission, which is dedicated to social service

DRDO conducts successful flight-test of New Generation AKASH missile off Odisha coast:

• Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) conducted a successful flight-test of the New Generation AKASH (AKASH-NG) missile from the Integrated Test Range (ITR), Chandipur off the coast of Odisha at 1030 hrs on January 12, 2024.
• The flight-test was conducted against a high-speed unmanned aerial target at very low altitude.
• During the flight-test, the target was successfully intercepted by the weapon system and destroyed.
• It has validated the functioning of the complete weapon system consisting of the missile with indigenously developed Radio Frequency Seeker, Launcher, Multi-Function Radar and Command, Control & Communication system.
• The system performance was also validated through the data captured by a number of Radars, Telemetry and Electro Optical Tracking System deployed by ITR, Chandipur.
• The AKASH-NG system is a state-of-the-art missile system capable of intercepting high speed, agile aerial threats. The successful flight test has paved the way for User trials.

‘ANUBHAV Awards Scheme, 2024’:

• DOPPW had launched an on-line platform entitled ‘Anubhav Portal’ in March 2015 for sharing experiences of retiring/retired Central Government employees while working with the Government.
• It is envisaged that this culture of leaving notes by retirees will become the foundation stone of good governance and administrative reforms in future.
• Government has notified the ANUBHAV Awards Scheme 2024.
• To participate in the scheme, retiring Central Government employees/pensioners are required to submit their Anubhav write ups, 8 months prior to retirement and up to 1 year after their retirement. Thereafter, the write-ups will be published after assessment by concerned Ministries/Departments. The published write-ups will be shortlisted for Anubhav Awards and Jury Certificates.
• The last date for submission under ANUBHAV Awards Scheme 2024 is 31.3.2024. Till date, 54 ANUBHAV awards have been conferred from 2016 to 2023.

PM presents sacred Chadar to be placed during the Urs of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti at Ajmer Sharif Dargah:

Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti: 

• Ur’s festival is an annual festival held at Ajmer in Rajasthan to commemorate his death anniversary.
• Khwaja Chishti is also known by different names as, Khawaja Gharib Nawaz, ‘Sultan-Ul-Hind’ (Benefactor of the Poor).
• He was born in Sijistan (modern-day Sistan) in Iran in 1141-42 CE. He started living and preaching in Ajmer after the 2nd Battle of Tarain (1192), where Mohammed of Ghori defeated Prithviraj Chauhan.
• His Mission is to establish the kingdom of God on Earth. He was popular among the locals, kings, nobles, and peasants for his instructive discourses full of spiritual insights.
• He established the Chishti order of ‘fakirs’ in India. It emphasised the unity of being with God (waḥdat al-wujūd) and members of the order were also pacifists. They rejected all material goods as distractions from the contemplation of God.
• They abstained from connection with the secular state.
• Recitation of the names of God, both aloud and silently (dhikr jahrī, dhikr khafī), formed the cornerstone of Chishtī practice.

Recently, the West Bengal Chief Minister has called for the inclusion of ‘Bangla’ as a classical language:

• Currently, 6 languages enjoy the ‘Classical language status.
• Tamil (declared in 2004), Sanskrit (2005), Kannada (2008), Telugu (2008), Malayalam (2013), and Odia (2014).
• Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL) is in Mysuru and Central Institute of Classical Tamil (CICT) is in Chennai.
• Guidelines for declaring a language as ‘Classical’ are
  • High antiquity of its early texts/recorded history over a period of 1500-2000 years.
  • A body of ancient literature/texts, which is considered a valuable heritage by generations of speakers.
  • The literary tradition is original and not borrowed from another speech community.
  • The classical language and literature being distinct from modern, there may also be a discontinuity between the classical language and its later forms or its offshoots.
• Benefits of Recognition – 2 major annual international awards for scholars of eminence in classical Indian languages
• A Centre of Excellence for studies in Classical Languages is set up.

Electoral gender ratio in State rises to 1,036 in a decade:

• Electoral Gender Ratio (EGR) is the female electors present in electoral rolls against 1,000 male electors.
• Sustained efforts by the Election Commission of India (ECI) resulted in the Electoral Gender Ratio (EGR) of Andhra Pradesh rising from 1,013 in the year 2014 to 1,036 as on January 10, 2024.
• As per the data furnished by the CEC, Andhra Pradesh’s EGR climbed up from 1,013 in 2014 to 1,021 in 2019, from where it went up further to 1,027 in 2023 and then to the present 1,036.
• The EGR is more than 1,000 in 159 out of 175 Assembly constituencies and women voters in the 18-19 age bracket stand at 3.50 lakh.
• A total of 5.05 lakh first-time voters have been added since the draft publication of electoral rolls on October 27, 2023.
• The State has 5.80 lakh persons aged more than 80 and 1,174 older than 100.January 22 has been set as the date for publication of the final electoral rolls.
• The ECI pegged the total population of 11 Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups at 4,29,106 and their 18+ population at 2,94,750.
• As far as the other data is concerned, Andhra Pradesh has 46,165 Polling Stations (34,187 in rural areas and 11,978 in cities and towns, with an average of 870 per polling station.
• The term of the A.P. Legislative Assembly is going to end on June 11, 2024, by which time a new government has to be in place.
• Andhra Pradesh has a total 175 Assembly constituencies (139 general and 29 and 7 constituencies reserved for SCs and STs respectively).
• Of the 25 Lok Sabha constituencies, 20 are in the general category, four are allotted to SCs and one to STs.