10 PM Current Affairs Quiz #15 September 18, 2019

Explanation: Project Elephant (PE), a centrally sponsored scheme, was launched in February 1992 to provide financial and technical support to major elephant bearing States in the country for protection of elephants, their habitats and corridors. It also seeks to address the issues of human-elephant conflict and welfare of domesticated elephants. The Project is being implemented in 13 States / UTs, viz. Andhra pradesh , Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Jharkhand , Karnataka , Kerala , Meghalaya , Nagaland , Orissa , Tamil Nadu , Uttranchal , Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. Based on the proposals received in the form of Annual Plan of Operations, Government of India provides financial and technical assistance to State/UT Governments for wildlife protection under the various Centrally Sponsored Schemes – Development of National Parks and Sanctuaries, Project Tiger and Project Elephant. These funds are released after scrutiny of the proposals and also subject to the availability of funds and fulfillment of procedural requirements.

Explanation: the Union Cabinet finalised the make-up of the new National Health Authority (NHA). It will now directly oversee the government-funded flagship health insurance scheme-the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY)—which is a part of the Centre’s Ayushman Bharat umbrella policy for healthcare. It replaces the earlier National Health Agency. This new body will now oversee the PM-JAY instead of the Ministry of Health. Launched on September 23 last year, the PM-JAY entitles 10.74 crore families to an annual health insurance cover of Rs 5 lakh.
•The Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare will chair the NHA’s governing board, while other members include the NITI Aayog’s CEO and the NHA CEO.
•The Ministry of Health will no longer be responsible for overseeing the day-to-day affairs of the NHA. Instead, the NHA will now decide on setting the bar for premium amounts, and purchasing healthcare from the private sector without favouring any one entity or depleting the public exchequer, among others
•The NHA will also oversee the process of developing a robust information technology platform for the public sector, and working alongside the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority.
•The NHA board will meet once in three months. Although the health body hasn’t received any statutory backing yet, it will continue to enjoy autonomy in how it runs day-to-day operation working out of the department of health research’s office in the ministry.
•“No new funds have been approved. The existing budget that was approved earlier by the Cabinet for The National Health Agency, including costs related to IT, human resources, infrastructure and operational costs would be utilised by the proposed National Health Authority,”.

Explanation: India on Tuesday signed a non-binding cooperation agreement with Russia that reiterated interest of Indian firms in taking stake in oilfields in Far East region of the former Soviet Republic. Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan discussed investment opportunities when he met Igor Sechin, chief executive of Russian oil major Rosneft, here on Tuesday. “We discussed elaborately for raising oil imports from Russia,” he told reporters after the meeting.
During the talks, the two sides reviewed existing stake of Indian firms in Russian oilfields such as Sakhalin-1, Taas-Yuryakh and Vankor fields. “In the presence of Minister Pradhan, the Indian consortium of four oil and gas PSUs (Bharat PetroResources Ltd, Indian Oil Corp, ONGC Videsh Ltd and Oil India Ltd) and Rosneft exchanged a non-binding cooperation agreement, reiterating their interest in participation of the Indian companies in the Eastern Cluster project of Russia,”.

Explanation: Minister of Science & Technology Harsh Vardhan on Monday inaugurated the National Centre for Clean Coal Research and Development at Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bengaluru. The centre has been established as a national consortium on clean coal research and development with IISc leading it. The new centre would address several critical R&D challenges towards the development of clean coal technologies in tandem with developing supercritical power plant technologies, both at the materials and system level.
The minister also formally launched an Interdisciplinary Centre for Energy Research (ICER) equipped with modern facilities for conducting a wide spectrum of energy research through the knowledge network.

Explanation: World Ozone Day has been celebrated on September 16, 2019. The International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone layer is observed every year on September 16th.
The theme for the year 2019 is ‘32 Years and Healing’. The World Ozone Day 2019 celebrates over three decades of international cooperation to protect the ozone layer and the climate under the Montreal Protocol.