Prelims Focus 30th June 2025

Adi Karmyogi Programme

In News: The Ministry of Tribal Affairs launched the Adi Karmyogi Programme. 

• Launched by: Ministry of Tribal Affairs
• Aim: To capacitate almost 20 lakh stakeholders concerned in tribal welfare transport, such as bureaucrats, block officials, and frontline people.
• Focus Areas: The software will consciousness on enhancing effects in significant areas along with:
  • Healthcare gaps (with special attention to Sickle Cell Disease)
  • School staffing shortages
  • Poor access to public services in tribal belts
• Connection to Mission Karmayogi: While “Adi Karmyogi” is particularly for tribal affairs, it aligns with the wider “Mission Karmayogi” (launched in 2020) – the National Programme for Civil Services Capacity Building (NPCSCB).

SPREE Scheme

In News: In the 196th meeting, the Employees’ State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) re-released this scheme for 2025 with the goal of expanding ESI insurance throughout the country.

• Genesis: Originally introduced in 2016, SPREE (Scheme to Promote Registration of Employers/Employees) has facilitated the registration of over 88,000 employers and 1.02 crore personnel.
• Objective: It pursuits to deliver unregistered employers and left-out employees (consisting of contractual and transient workforce) under the ESI Act.
• Duration: The renewed SPREE scheme may be open from July 1st to December 31st, 2025.
• Benefit: By specializing in voluntary compliance in place of penalisation, the scheme will try to ease the litigation burden, encourage formal registration, and foster stepped forward engagement and goodwill among stakeholders.

Kailash Manasarovar Yatra

In News: The Kailash Manasarovar Yatra, one of the most revered pilgrimages for Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, and the Bon religion, has resumed in 2025 after a five-year hiatus. 

• The pilgrimage, suspended since 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and geopolitical tensions between India and China, marks a significant step in the normalization of bilateral relations between the two countries. 
• The resumption follows diplomatic discussions, notably the Special Representatives’ meeting in Beijing in December 2024 and a subsequent visit by India’s Foreign Secretary in January 2025. Organized by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), the 2025 yatra commenced in June, with the first batch of Indian pilgrims arriving at the sacred Mansarovar Lake in Tibet. 
• The pilgrimage is open to Indian citizens aged between 18 and 70 years, who are selected through a computer-generated, gender-balanced, and random draw. 
• This year, 5,561 applicants registered, with 750 pilgrims selected to travel in 15 batches—five via the Lipulekh Pass in Uttarakhand and ten through Nathu La in Sikkim. 
• Both routes are now fully motorable, reducing the physical strain on pilgrims and making the journey more accessible. The Mansarovar Lake, located at an altitude of 4,590 meters, is among the world’s highest freshwater lakes and holds deep spiritual significance. 
• According to Hindu belief, drinking its waters purifies the soul of sins from a hundred past lives. The yatra’s revival is also a testament to improved infrastructure, notably the completion of the Tawaghat-Lipulekh road by the Border Roads Organisation, enabling safer and more comfortable travel for pilgrims. 
• The resumption of the Kailash Manasarovar Yatra is not only a spiritual milestone but also a symbol of renewed cultural and diplomatic engagement between India and China.

AlphaGenome

In News: In a transformative leap for genomic science, Google DeepMind has unveiled AlphaGenome, an advanced artificial intelligence model engineered to predict how genetic mutations influence human health and disease. 

• This innovation arrives at a critical juncture: while the human genome was sequenced over two decades ago, the functional implications of most of its 3.1 billion DNA letters—especially the vast non-coding regions—remain elusive. 
• AlphaGenome is designed to illuminate these “dark matter” regions, which, though not directly encoding proteins, play pivotal roles in regulating gene activity and are implicated in numerous diseases, including cancer. 
• AlphaGenome processes DNA sequences up to one million base pairs long, leveraging transformer-based architectures and high-performance computing to analyze complex patterns across the genome. 
• It predicts a wide array of molecular properties—such as transcription start and end sites, RNA splicing patterns, DNA accessibility, and protein binding—across hundreds of cell types and tissues. 
• By comparing mutated sequences to their normal counterparts, the model can forecast how specific genetic changes affect gene regulation and, consequently, disease risk.
• Currently available as a research-focused API for non-commercial use, AlphaGenome consolidates multiple analytical functions into a unified model, streamlining the work of biologists and accelerating discoveries in disease biology. 
• Its early applications have already demonstrated the ability to identify disease-linked mutations in non-coding regions, such as those influencing leukemia-related genes, with findings that align with prior experimental data.

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