Option (d) is correct

Explanation:

• The Prime Minister  launched the ‘Vishwakarma’ scheme for traditional artisans and craftspeople on the occasion of Vishwakarma Jayanti.
• Statement 1 is correct: PM Vishwakarma will be fully funded by the Union Government with an outlay of Rs 13,000 crores over five years up to 2027-28.
• Statement 2 is correct: Under the scheme, the Vishwakarmas will be registered free of charge through Common Services Centres using the biometric-based PM Vishwakarma portal. 
• They will be provided recognition through PM Vishwakarma certificate and ID card, skill upgradation involving basic and advanced training, toolkit incentive of ₹15,000, collateral-free credit support up to ₹1 lakh (first tranche) and ₹2 lakh (second tranche) at a concessional interest rate of 5%, incentive for digital transactions and marketing support.
• Significance: 
  • To strengthen and nurture the Guru-Shishya parampara or family-based practice of traditional skills by Vishwakarmas working with their hands and tools. 
  • To improve the quality as well as the reach of products and services of artisans and craftspeople and to ensure that they are integrated with the domestic and global value chains.
• The scheme will provide support to artisans and craftspeople in rural and urban areas across India.  

Option (a) is correct.

Explanation:

• World Ozone Day is celebrated on 16th September each year to commemorate the signing of the Montreal Protocol.
  • Montreal Protocol is an international environmental treaty for phasing out production and consumption of Ozone Depleting Substances that came into force on this day in 1987. 
• World Ozone Day is celebrated every year to spread awareness among people about the depletion of Ozone Layer and the measures taken/ to be taken to preserve it. 
• Around 99 percent of ozone-depleting chemicals in refrigerators, air-cooling systems and other products have already been phased-out because of the Montreal Protocol.
• The theme for World Ozone Day 2023 is “Montreal Protocol: Fixing the Ozone Layer and Reducing Climate Change”.

Option (b) is correct.

Explanation:

• The military leaders of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger  signed a mutual defense pact, ministerial delegations from the three Sahel countries announced in Mali’s capital Bamako.
• The word Sahel, or Sahil in Arabic means coast or shore.
• Sahel is the vast region that stretches from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea along the Sahara desert’s southern rim. 
• Thus, the Sahel region is wedged between Sahara desert in the north and tropical forests and the savannah to the south. 
  • This makes the climate in the Sahel tropical semi-arid.
• There are many different political definitions of which countries actually belong to the Sahel.
  • But a core group — Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mauritania — is known as the G5 Sahel.
  • Other definitions take in parts of Senegal, Nigeria, Sudan, South Sudan and Eritrea.

Image Credits: WION

Option (b) is correct

Explanation:

• Kilauea volcano recently resumed eruption following a two-month pause. Kilauea is an active shield volcano in the Hawaiian Islands, USA which has been erupting almost continuously for 200 years. 

Option (c) is correct

Explanation:

• Recently, the 75th anniversary of Operation Polo, the military action launched by the Indian Army on September 13, 1948, to integrate the princely state of Hyderabad was observed.
• After India gained Independence, all princely states were given the opportunity to either join India or Pakistan. If any state wanted to remain independent, it could make a seperate nation.
  • Hyderabad wanted to be a seperate nation and hence declared itself as an Independent nation. 
• India was forced to launch ‘Operation Polo’ to save the people of Hyderabad and annex Hyderabad into the Union Of India.