Daily Current Affairs – 16 October 2022

As visitors keep pouring in to witness the blooming of neelakurinji on a vast area on the Kallippara hills at Santhanpara in Idukki, an expert team has identified six varieties of the plant across the region.
The team, comprising Jomy Augustine, an expert on neelakurinji, and E. Kunjikrishnan, an expert on the Western Ghats, recently identified the plant varieties. According to them, the flowers that are on bloom now belong to the Strobilanthes kunthiana
Alongside Strobilanthes kunthiana, the types of neelakurinji flowers that have been identified from the hill ranges include Strobilanthes anamallaica, Strobilanthes heyneanus, Strobilanthes pulnyensis, and Strobilanthes neoasper.
The bloom reported at Kallippara belongs to the gregarious flowering (massive flowering at once) type, he says calling for collective efforts to protect the rich biodiversity hotspot on the Kallippara hills.

Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal will lead the Indian delegation to Washington next month with the U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai heading the American delegation
S.India Trade Policy Forum (TPF) has been scheduled for November 8 in Washington DC, The Hindu has confirmed. U.S. trade officials are arriving in New Delhi next week to finalise issues for discussion,
A few weeks ahead of this meeting, it appears that that the gains are most likely going to be modest and incremental in the immediate future, given the structural differences in both economies and political considerations in India and the U.S. — both of which have general elections in 2024.
The 12th TPF was held in New Delhi in November 2021, after a hiatus of four years, delivering some gains over the past twelve months, such as the resumption of sales of Indian mangoes and pomegranate arils to the U.S. following the pandemic, and the appearance of U.S. cherries on the Indian market.

Health Ministry data shows the States account for 11.4% and 10.9% of the total number of medical colleges respectively; number of UG medical seats in India increased by 121% in the last decade
It added that in the last decade, government medical colleges had more than doubled from 154 to 321 and private colleges grew by 61% from 181 in 2011-12 to 291 in 2021-22.
In 2021-22, Tamil Nadu (11.4%) and Uttar Pradesh (10.9%) had the highest share of both public and private UG medical colleges followed by Karnataka (10.3%) and Maharashtra (10.1%).
In terms of addition of private MBBS seats between 2017-22 — the maximum increase was in Tamil Nadu (4,110 seats), Karnataka (3,004 seats), Maharashtra (2,775 seats), Gujarat (2,170 seats), Telangana (1,900 seats) and Bihar (1,525 seats).