NATIONAL – DAIRY OF EVENTS

India’s First Hydrogen-Powered Train

• Background: Indian Railways has announced that the Prime Minister is set to inaugurate India’s first hydrogen-powered train on July 17.

Train Details

• The Jind-Sonipat route in Haryana has been selected as the pilot corridor for this project.
• The train has been entirely designed and manufactured in India.
• It operates on the broad-gauge railway network.
• Comprising 10 coaches, it currently stands as the world’s longest hydrogen-powered train.
• For propulsion, the train utilizes a hydrogen fuel cell system with a capacity of 1,200 kW.
• Its maximum speed is 75 km/h.

Project Components

• Two 1,600-horsepower diesel power units have been converted into hydrogen fuel cell-powered units.
• A hydrogen storage and refueling station has been established in the Jind area of ​​Haryana.
• The ‘Research Designs and Standards Organisation’ (RDSO) is responsible for the design, testing, and validation of this project.

Significance

• This train is part of Indian Railways’ “Hydrogen for Heritage” initiative; under this scheme, 35 hydrogen-powered trains are set to be introduced on heritage and mountain railway routes.
• This marks a significant milestone, as only a few countries—such as Germany and China—have developed hydrogen-powered trains.
• The project supports the goal of promoting clean and eco-friendly transportation.
• Furthermore, it aids progress towards Indian Railways’ objective of achieving ‘Net Zero Carbon Emission’ status by 2030.

SWAYATT Initiative 

CONTEXT: Recently, the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) celebrated the seven-year journey of its flagship initiative, SWAYATT – Startups, Women and Youth Advantage through e-Transactions.

About SWAYATT Initiative

• It was launched in February 2019.
• It was conceptualised with a clear objective of invigorating participation of women-led enterprises and youth in public procurement.
• It democratizes government procurement by enabling startups, women entrepreneurs, youth, Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs), Self Help Groups (SHGs) and last-mile sellers to directly participate in the public procurement ecosystem through Government e-Marketplace.
• It is rooted in GeM’s foundational pillar of social inclusion.
• SWAYATT focuses on addressing three critical challenges often faced by emerging enterprises—access to markets, access to finance and access to value addition.

About Government e Marketplace

• It is an Online Market platform that was set up in 2016.
• It facilitates the procurement of goods and services by government ministries, departments, public sector undertakings (PSU) etc.
• It has been envisaged as the National Procurement Portal of India.
• It was developed by the Directorate General of Supplies and Disposals (Ministry of Commerce and Industry) with technical support from the National e-governance Division (Ministry of Electronic and Information Technology).
• GeM is a completely paperless, cashless and system-driven e-marketplace that enables procurement of common-use goods and services with minimal human interface.

UMANG portal

• CONTEXT: Multiple vulnerabilities in the UMANG, or Unified Mobile Application for New age Governance, portal that aggregates hundreds of public services offered by the Union and State governments are leaving data of potentially millions of Indians exposed across a variety of databases, including those from the Employees’ Provi-dent Fund Organisation (EPFO), according to two security researchers who shared their findings with The Hindu.
• The vulnerabilities, which have likely existed for years, affect several services tested on the UMANG portal, which has onboarded over 2,400 services.

ABOUT  UMANG (Unified Mobile Application for New-Age Governance)

• UMANG is one of the key initiatives under the Digital India program to develop a common, unified platform and mobile app to facilitate a single point of access to all government services. 
• Its primary aim is to abridge inconvenience faced by users in managing multiple mobile apps and facilitate a one-stop-solution to avail varied government services. 
• Citizens will be able to find government facilities nearest to their location, such as mandis, blood banks and also be able to see these on the most detailed and interactive street and village level maps of India (built by Map my India company).
• Recently, the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY) has enabled map services in UMANG (Unified Mobile Application for New-age Governance) App.

Significance

• The UMANG mobile app is a Government of India all-in-one single, unified, secure, multi-channel, multi-lingual, multi-service mobile app.
• It provides access to high impact services of various organizations of Centre and States. Presently it has 2000+ services.
• The aim of UMANG is to fast-track mobile governance in India.
• UMANG enables ‘Ease of Living’ for Citizens by providing easy access to a plethora of Indian government services ranging from – Healthcare, Finance, Education, Housing, Energy, Agriculture, Transport to even Utility and Employment and Skills.
• The key partners of UMANG are Employee Provident Fund Organization, Direct Benefit Transfer scheme departments, Employee State Insurance Corporation, Ministries of Health, Education, Agriculture, Animal Husbandry and Staff Selection Commission (SSC).
• UMANG was developed by the National e-Governance Division (NeGD), Ministry of Electronics & IT.
• It is a ‘Digital India’ initiative.
• The international version called ‘UMANG International’ was launched in 2020 to mark three years of UMANG.
• The international version is for select countries that include USA, UK, Canada, Australia, UAE, Netherlands, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand.
• It will help Indian international students, NRIs and Indian tourists abroad, to avail Government of India services, anytime.
• It will also help in taking India to the world through ‘Indian Culture’ services available on UMANG and create interest amongst foreign tourists to visit India.
• UMANG attained ‘Best m-Government service’ award at the 6th World Government Summit held at Dubai, UAE in February 2018.

Automated Permanent Academic Account Registry (APAAR)

• CONTEXT: About 25 crore APAAR IDs have been created by Ministry of Education.Introduced in alignment with National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and National Credit and Qualifications Framework (NCrF).This is part of ‘One nation, One Student ID’ initiative.
• It aims to provide unified academic experience for students by assigning a unique and permanent 12-digit ID to every student, consolidating their academic achievements in one place.
• It reduces fraud and duplicate educational certificates by providing a single, trusted reference for educational institutions.

APAAR ID: One Nation, One Student ID with Emerging Concerns

• The Automated Permanent Academic Account Registry (APAAR) ID, aims to standardize student records. However, concerns over implementation, data privacy have sparked debates among activists. 
• APAAR ID: Introduced under the National Education Policy 2020 and aligned with the National Credit Framework, it aims to establish a “One Nation, One Student ID” system to streamline academic records and facilitate transitions between educational levels. 

• APAAR assigns a 12-digit ID, linking academic records to DigiLocker and Academic Bank of Credits for storage and verification.  
• Schools record data, while Higher Education Institutions & Skill Institutes access verified academic records for admissions and recruitment. 

•  About APAAR ID: APAAR’s Aadhaar linkage is causing issues due to spelling mismatches, necessitating updates. 

• While the Education Ministry claims APAAR is voluntary, Central Board of Secondary Education’s push for 100% enrolment of APAAR raises concerns of implicit mandates, contradicting the Supreme Court ruling in Justice (Retd.) K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2019), which held that Aadhaar cannot be required for basic education access. 
• The Advocacy groups are concerned about risks in handling minors’ sensitive personal data without robust data protection. 
  • The Data Protection Act, 2023 (not yet enforced) mandates that consent must be free, informed, and unambiguous, which activists argue is being ignored.