World Braille Day will be celebrated on 4^th January:

• This day holds special importance as it marks the birthday of Louis Braille, the visionary inventor of the Braille script, born in France in 1809. Recognizing the paramount role of Braille in education, communication, and social inclusion, the United Nations has designated 4 January each year as World Braille Day.
• World Braille Day, celebrated since 2019, is observed to raise awareness of the importance of Braille as a means of communication in the full realisation of the human rights for blind and partially sighted people.
• Braille is a tactile representation of alphabetic and numerical symbols using six dots to represent each letter and number, and even musical, mathematical and scientific symbols. Braille (named after its inventor in 19th century France, Louis Braille) is used by blind and partially sighted people to read the same books and periodicals as those printed in a visual font.

NHAI signs MoU with NRSC for Development and Reporting of “Green Cover Index” for National Highways of India:

• The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) under the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) for a period of three years to develop and report a “Green Cover Index” for the extensive network of National Highways in India.
• Since the initiation of the Green Highways Policy in 2015, the prioritisation of greening Highway Corridors has been a focal point for the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) and NHAI. Presently, the monitoring of plantations relies on site visits by field personnel.
• National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) headquartered in Hyderabad, has the mandate for establishment of ground stations for receiving satellite data, generation of data products, and development of techniques for remote sensing applications including geospatial services for good governance among other things.

7^th Grid-India Day commemorates 7 years of independent functioning and contribution of Grid-India:

• The 7^th Grid-India Day was celebrated in New Delhi today, 3rd January 2024, to commemorate seven years of independent functioning of Grid Controller of India Limited as a Central Public Sector Enterprise.
• GRID-INDIA day is observed on 3rd January to commemorate its independent functioning since 3rd January 2017, as a Central Public Sector Enterprise (CPSE) under Ministry of Power, after separating from POWERGRID as its subsidiary organisation.
• GRID-INDIA is entrusted with the crucial responsibility of ensuring the integrated operation of the electricity grid in a reliable, efficient, and secure manner.
• Its structure comprises five Regional Load Despatch Centres (RLDCs) and the National Load Despatch Centre (NLDC).

Ministry of Youth Affairs & Sports announced ‘Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Puruskar’ 2023:

• Odisha Mining Corporate Limited awarded in the category “Encouragement to sports through Corporate Social Responsibility”
• Jain Deemed to be University, Bengaluru awarded in the category “Identification and nurturing of budding / young talent”
• ‘Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Puruskar’ is given to corporate entities (both in private and public sector), Sports Control Boards, NGOs, including sports bodies at the State and National level, who have played a visible role in the area of sports promotion and development.
• The six core awards which constitute India’s National Sports Awards are the Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award or simply the Khel Ratna, the Arjuna Award, the Dronacharya Award, the Major Dhyan Chand Award, the Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Trophy, also called the MAKA Trophy, and the Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Puruskar.

Solar Energy Corporation of India Limited (SECI) participates in Atma Nirbhar Bharat Utsav 2024 at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi:

• Solar Energy Corporation of India Limited (SECI), a Miniratna Category-I Central Public Sector Unit under the administrative control of the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), Government of India, is participating in the Aatmnirbhar Bharat Utsav 2024 being organised by India Trade Promotion Organization (ITPO) and Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) during January 3 – 10, 2024
• Solar Energy Corporation of India Limited (SECI) is engaged in promotion and development of various renewable energy resources, especially Solar and Wind energy, renewable energy (RE) based storage systems, trading of power, R&D as well as RE-based products like Green Hydrogen, Green Ammonia and RE powered electric vehicles.
• The company is one of the nodal agencies for implementation of a number of schemes of MNRE.

Ministry of Education launches PRERANA program:

• The Department of School Education & Literacy, Ministry of Education, Government of India has launched ‘Prerana: An Experiential Learning program’, aiming to offer a meaningful, unique, and inspiring experience to all participants, thereby empowering them with leadership qualities.
• Prerana is driven by a strong commitment to integrate principles of the Indian education system and the philosophy of value-based education which is a cornerstone of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.
• Prerana is a week-long residential program for selected students of class IX to XII. It is an experiential and inspirational learning program for students with the best-in-class technology where heritage meets innovation. A batch of 20 selected students (10 boys and 10 girls) will attend the program, every week from various parts of the country.
• Prerana program will run from a Vernacular School, established in 1888, in one of the oldest living cities of India, Vadnagar, district Mehsana, Gujarat.

SpaceX’s Falcon-9 to launch India’s GSAT-20; satellite to spread broadband coverage:

• NewSpace India Ltd. (NSIL), the commercial arm of the Indian Space Research Organisation, will launch GSAT-20 (renamed GSAT-N2), on board SpaceX’s Falcon-9 rocket during the second quarter of 2024.
• The GSAT-20 is a high-throughput Ka-band satellite (HTS), which will be fully owned, operated and funded by the NSIL.
• GSAT-20 offers Ka-Ka band HTS capacity with 32 beams having pan-India coverage, including the Andaman and Nicobar and Lakshadweep islands.
• The satellite, weighing 4,700 kg, offers an HTS capacity of nearly 48 Gpbs and has been specifically designed to meet the demanding service needs of remote and unconnected regions.
• As part of the space sector reforms announced by the Union government in June 2020, the NSIL was mandated to build, launch, own and operate satellites in “demand-driven mode” to meet service needs of the user.
• As part of this, the NSIL successfully undertook its first demand-driven satellite mission, GSAT-24, in June 2022, and the capacity-board of the satellite was fully secured by Tata Play. GSAT-24 mission was fully funded by the NSIL. At present, the agency owns and operates 11 communication satellites in orbit.
• “On similar lines, during the second quarter of 2024, NSIL will be undertaking the GSAT-20 satellite mission to offer cost-effective Ka-Ka band HTS capacity primarily for meeting the broadband, as well as IFMC and cellular backhaul service needs. The bulk of the HTS capacity on board GSAT-20 satellite has already been secured by Indian service providers.”
• According to SpaceX, Falcon-9 is a reusable, two-stage rocket designed and manufactured by the Elon Musk-founded company for the reliable and safe transport of people and payloads into Earth orbit and beyond.

Understanding the peace pact with ULFA:

• The pro-talks faction of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) signed a tripartite peace deal with the Centre and the Assam government on December 29, 2023.
• The memorandum of settlement has several clauses for accelerating the State’s development and safeguarding the land and political rights of indigenous communities but a worry remains in the form of the anti-talks faction headed by Paresh Baruah.

How was the ULFA formed? 

• The ULFA is a by-product of the anti-foreigners Assam Agitation that began in 1979 and ended with the signing of the Assam Accord in August 1985.
• The fear that the Assamese and other indigenous communities would be pushed out of their own backyard by “illegal immigrants” (people from Bangladesh) one day had triggered the agitation.
• While social organisations and students’ bodies chose the path of agitation, a group of radicals, including Arabinda Rajkhowa, Anup Chetia, and Paresh Baruah formed the ULFA on April 7, 1979, to launch an armed struggle with the objective of establishing a sovereign Assam. The group took a decade to recruit and train its members in Myanmar, China, and Pakistan before striking with a series of abductions and executions.
• The government responded in 1990 with an offensive codenamed Operation Bajrang and banned the ULFA.
• Assam was declared a disturbed area with the imposition of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act.

What does the peace accord offer?

• According to the memorandum of settlement, the ULFA has agreed to renounce violence, disarm, disband the armed organisation, vacate their occupied camps, and participate in the peaceful democratic process established by the law.
• Marking a shift toward non-violence, it aims to ensure the integrity of the country contrary to what the ULFA had initially demanded.
• The Ministry of Home Affairs will make a time-bound programme to fulfil the demands of the outfit and a committee would be formed for its monitoring.
• The pact underlines a comprehensive package entailing an investment of ₹1.5 lakh crore for the all-round development of Assam. The most significant part of the accord is the commitment to address the political demands of the ULFA.
• These include maintaining the territorial integrity of Assam through amicable settlement of boundary disputes with neighbouring States in the Northeast and continuation of the “guidelines and methodology” adopted for the delimitation exercise conducted in 2023 in future delimitation processes.
• The pact envisages ensuring maximum representation for indigenous communities in the 126-member Assam Assembly by keeping non-original inhabitants, primarily migrant Muslims, out.
• The 2023 delimitation is said to have made it impossible for non-indigenous communities to contest 106 of these seats.
• Apart from the legislative safeguard, the pact seeks exemption for Assam from Section 3 of the Citizenship Act of 1955 dealing with people who have renounced Indian citizenship or whose citizenship has been terminated, to conditionally stop people of one constituency from being registered in another, and prepare an error-free National Register of Citizens, whose updated complete draft had put 19.06 lakh people out of 3.3 crore applicants on the rejection list.