General Awareness

NATIONAL AFFAIRS - September 2015

Sep 2015

Apr 09, 2022

Andhra Pradesh Cabinet Dissolved, All 24 Ministers Submit Resignations to CM Jagan Mohan Reddy

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy dissolved the state cabinet ahead of a major reshuffle. All 24 members have tendered their resignations.
This comes after the Chief Minister met Governor Biswabhusan Harichandran at the Raj Bhawan on Wednesday. The chief minister will submit the list of new ministers to Governor.
The new council of ministers will be inducted on April 11.
Reacting to the cabinet reshuffle, Perni Venkataramaiah, former information and public relations minister said the decision was taken with a focus on the 2024 state elections.
When Jagan Reddy took over as Chief Minister on May 30, 2019, he announced that he would undertake a complete overhaul of his cabinet after two and a half years and take in a new team. The cabinet revamp was scheduled for December 2021, but was postponed due to Covid.

Yogi Adityanath's Govt. to Build Rainwater Harvesting Pits in Villages

The Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh has decided to form water committees and ensure conservation of water leaking from pipelines by construction of rainwater harvesting pits on a war footing. The purpose is to conserve rainwater and reuse the same.
The responsibility for this has been entrusted to Namami Gange and Rural Water Supply Department.
It has been decided that programmes will be expedited to complete village to village water conservation schemes on a war footing.

LS Speaker: 'One Nation, One Legislative Platform' by 2023

The proceedings of all legislatures, both Houses of Parliament and state assemblies and legislative councils, will be available on one platform by 2023, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla said.
Birla said that the government is working on bringing proceedings of all state legislatures on one platform. I think we will be able to do it by 2023.
He said that the platform would provide lot of information to public. Besides, the endeavour is to provide all the documents through metadata so that people can access the proceedings of the House.
The idea of such a platform was mooted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his address at the inaugural session of 82nd All India Presiding Officers' Conference on November 17, 2021.

Govt Mandates Vehicles' Fitness Testing via Automated Stations from 2023

The government made fitness testing of vehicles through Automated Testing Stations (ATS) mandatory in a phased manner starting April 2022. An Automated Testing Station (ATS) uses mechanical equipment to automate the various tests required to check the fitness of a vehicle. Fitness testing for personal vehicles (non-transport) is done at the time of renewal of registration (after 15 years).
According to the notification, renewal of certificate of fitness will be for two years for commercial vehicles (transport) that are up to eight years old and one year for commercial vehicles (transport) that are older than eight years.

Apr 08, 2022

India Plans to Issue E-passports to its Citizens Starting this Year:

E-passport will be a combined paper and electronic passport, with an embedded Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) chip and antenna embedded as an inlay in the back cover. Union Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan on Thursday said that the government is planning to issue e-passports to its citizens, starting in 2022-23.
The passport's critical information will be printed on its data page as well as stored in the chip. The characteristics of the document and the chip are specified in International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) document 9303
The e-passports will be produced by the India Security Press, Nashik, which has issued letters of intent for the procurement of 4.5 crore ICAO-compliant electronic chips along with its operating system

Delhi Govt. Offers Subsidy of Rs. 5,500 for First 10,000 Buyers of e-cycles

Delhi government announced to provide Rs. 5,500 in subsidy to each of the first 10,000 buyers of e-cycles as a part of its big push to electric vehicles in the city.
In addition to this, first 1,000 buyers of passenger e-cycles would also be eligible for an additional subsidy of Rs. 2,000 under the Delhi Electric Vehicle (EV) Policy, said Kailash Gahlot, Minister of Transport, Delhi. He also claimed that Delhi became the first state in the country to provide subsidy in e-cycle segment.
The residents of Delhi will be eligible for the subsidy scheme that will be linked with Aadhaar, Gahlot said, adding that all the members of a family having an Aadhaar card will be able to get the subsidy.

Maharashtra Govt. Starts Using Blockchain for Caste Certificate Validation

The Maharashtra government started using a system based on the blockchain technology for caste certificate validation.
Caste certificate validation currently involves a lot of manual intervention and is prone to frauds and forgery. Fraudulent caste certificates can deprive eligible persons of job or education opportunities.
The state government will now record all the necessary details related to a caste certificate and it will be issued to the applicant. Once issued, the data will be saved in the form of a QR code, using the blockchain technology. Any government department can then scan the QR code of a candidate and cross-check his or her caste certificate
The Etapalli sub-division of Gadchiroli district was selected for the first project. The technology was developed by LegitDoc, a start-up which won the Maharashtra government's 'hackathon' event in 2019.

Apr 07, 2022

Government Establishes a Semicon India Advisory Committee

The government announced the formation of a Semicon India advisory committee, which will include top government officials, established academicians, as well as industry and domain specialists. The Minister of Electronics and IT, Ashwini Vaishnaw, will head the Committee, with Rajeev Chandrashekhar, Minister of State, Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY), as Vice-Chairperson. The convenor will be MeitY, the Secretary.
It will spend a total of Rs. 76,000 crore to strengthen the country's semiconductor and display manufacturing ecosystem.
The group would meet at least once every three months to provide crucial insights to help India's ecosystem expand sustainably and committee's term will be one year, after which it will be reformed with the Minister of Electronics and Information Technology's consent.

BJP Celebrates its 42nd Foundation Day

The Bharatiya Janata Party marked its 42nd foundation day. BJP president JP Nadda hoisted the party flag at the party headquarters in the national capital. He also garlanded the statues of Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee and Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya.
Home Minister Amit Shah said that the BJP since 2014 has been striving while becoming a medium for the fulfilment of the aspirations of crores of poor, farmers, downtrodden and women of the country.
All the party leaders, including JP Nadda, were seen sporting the new party caps. The design of the cap seems to be inspired by the caps in Uttarakhand and the Brahm Kamal that Prime Minister Narendra Modi wore during the Republic Day celebrations.

Chennai Declared World's Cheapest FDI Location for Electronics R&D

In a major boost to the Tamil Nadu government's push for new investments, Chennai was ranked as the world's cheapest foreign direct investment (FDI) location for electronics research and development.
Chennai emerged as the cheapest location in the top 100 electronics FDI destinations, with estimated annual operating costs of $1.24 million for a 50-person R&D centre. Malaysian city of Penang took the second spot with a cost of $1.32 million, followed by Gurgaon with $1.52 million and Pune with $1.53 million.
Among the world's competitive locations, Chennai was ranked second, only after Seol, which is home for large campuses of players like Samsung and LG Electronics. Chennai was followed by Chinese cities like Guangzhou and Shenzhen. Three Indian cities – Bangalore, Pune and Gurgaon – grabbed a spot among the top 10 cities in this list.

Apr 06, 2022

Government Launches Broadcast Seva Portal for TV, Radio Stations

It would provide online facilities to the applicants for seeking permissions, subsequent change in permissions and payment of fee. With an aim to open a "new chapter" in Ease of Doing Business in the Broadcasting sector, the Government launched the 'Broadcast Seva Portal', an online portal solution for speedy filing and processing of applications for various kinds of licences, permissions and registration among other services.

Government Implements Schemes to Set up 50 Solar Parks of Aggregate Capacity 40,000 MW in the Cou...

The Government is implementing a scheme for setting up of 50 Solar Parks of aggregate capacity of 40,000 MW in the country. These parks are meant to provide developed infrastructure to facilitate installation of solar power projects. Central Financial Assistance of up to Rs. 25 lakhs for preparation of Detailed Project Report and Rs. 20 lakhs per MW or 30% of the project cost, whichever is lower, is provided for development of such Parks under the scheme.
This information was given by Shri R.K Singh, Union Minister for Power and New and Renewable Energy in a written reply in Rajya Sabha.

Ayush Ministry to Celebrate Yoga Mahotsav on World Health Day at Red Fort in New Delhi

Ayush Ministry will celebrate Yoga Mahotsav on World Health Day at Red Fort in New Delhi. Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and several Union Ministers will demonstrate Common Yoga Protocol on 75th day of the countdown of the International Day of Yoga.
During the event, Members of the Parliament, Ambassadors of various countries, prominent Sports Celebrities and Yoga Gurus will participate.
The Ministry with its various stakeholders has chalked out a 100 days' countdown programme of 8th International Day of Yoga wherein 100 organizations are promoting yoga in one hundred cities.

Apr 05, 2022

Vinay Mohan Kwatra is India's New Foreign Secretary

India's envoy to Nepal Vinay Mohan Kwatra was appointed as the new Foreign Secretary, succeeding Harsh Vardhan Shringla who will retire at the end of this month.
Before his diplomatic posting to Nepal in 2020, he served as the Ambassador of India to France from August 2017 to February 2020.
A career diplomat with over 32 years of experience, Kwatra has also held the position of a Joint Secretary in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) for two years between October 2015 to August 2017.

CM Jagan Mohan Reddy Launches 13 new Districts in Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy formally launched 13 new districts in the state taking the total number to 26. Reddy extended his heartiest wishes and congratulations to the people, officials and employees for the formation of the new districts and asked the officials to ensure that people are benefited by the schemes announced by government. Each district will now have six to eight assembly segments except in one tribal district.
Reddy, during the poll campaign for the 2019 Assembly elections, promised that his party, if voted to power, would make every Lok Sabha constituency as a district.

CIC Uday Mahurkar's Office Disposed of Record 5,056 RTI in 2021-2022

Citing a ruling on ancient Sanskrit manuscripts, Central Information Commissioner Uday Mahurkar said he "passed landmark judgements without fear or favour. Central Information Commissioner Uday Mahurkar said his court disposed of 5,056 RTI, or right to information, appeals in 2021-22, the highest in any year by a commissioner in 16 years of CIC's history. In a series of tweets, Mahurkar said his office took "creative steps like coordinating with Public Information officers of Union Ministries under my charge." The commissioner added that he even called "group meetings to know their problems while strictly directing them to ensure" the RTI Act's objectives of transparency and accountability.
The Central Information Commission was constituted under the Right to Information Act, 2005, with jurisdiction extending to all Central Public Authorities.

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