General Awareness

NATIONAL AFFAIRS - May 2017

May 2017

Apr 11, 2023

UIDAI - IIT Bombay join hands to develop touchless biometric capture system

Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has joined hands with Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT-Bombay) to develop a robust touchless biometric capture system for easier usage by people anytime, anywhere.
As part of the memorandum of understanding, UIDAI and IIT Bombay will carry out joint research to build a mobile capture system for fingerprints along with liveness model integrated with the capture system.
The touchless biometric capture system, once developed and operational, will allow fingerprint authentication from home alike face authentication. The new system is expected to capture multiple fingerprints at one go and aid authentication success rate further. The new system once in place will be an addition to the existing facilities available in the Aadhaar ecosystem.

Election Commission grants national party status to AAP; withdraws national tag of Trinamool Cong...

With the removal of NCP, CPI, and TMC, there are now only six national parties in the country – BJP, Congress, National People's Party, CPM, Bahujan Samaj Party and the latest addition AAP.
According to Election Commission rules, a party gets national status if it is recognized as a state party in four states. For recognition as a state party, it has to secure at least six percent of the valid votes polled and two seats each in Assembly or Lok Sabha polls.
The AAP got the status of a national party as it secured nearly 13 percent of the vote share and five seats in the Gujarat Assembly polls earlier this year making it the state party in four states—Delhi, Goa, Punjab and Gujarat.Reacting to his party getting the national party status, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said: "National party in such a short time? This is nothing less than a miracle. Many congratulations to all. Crores of people of the country have taken us till here. People expect a lot from us. Today people have given us this huge responsibility. Lord, bless us so that we can fulfill this responsibility well"

HM Amit Shah launched Vibrant Villages Programme in Arunachal Pradesh

Home Minister Amit Shah has launched the 'Vibrant Villages Programme' in Kibithoo, a border village in the Anjaw district of Arunachal Pradesh.He has also inaugurated nine Micro Hydel Projects of the AP government constructed under the "Golden Jubilee Border Illumination Programme" in Kibithoo.These electricity projects will empower people living in border villages.In the first phase, 662 villages have been identified for priority coverage

Apr 10, 2023

Bangladesh, Japan and India to hold connectivity meet in Tripura

Asian Confluence, a think tank based out of North East India, in collaboration with India's foreign ministry, is organising the event. It will be attended by deputy foreign ministers of Bangladesh and India along with the chief minister of Tripura and the Japanese envoy to India, reports the Economic Times.
Japan is investing in Northeast India and Bangladesh including the deep sea port at Matarbari that will connect the landlocked region with the Bay of Bengal.
Asian Confluence recently conducted a studythat suggested both Northeast India andBangladesh need to scale up their multi-modal connectivity, which would not only help the region to raise its competitiveness but also narrow the development gaps in the region.

Apr 09, 2023

Centre Declares Tripura Best State in NE for E-procurement

Tripura was given the best state award in the north-eastern region by the Centre for successful implementation of e-procurement.
To maintain transparency, the state has made it mandatory to go for e-procurement if the value of any government purchase or contract goes beyond Rs. 25,000.
Except the pension to 82,000 pensioners, all the employees including Anganwadi workers are receiving salary through digital payment, said Finance Minister Pranajit Singha Roy.

South Korean Foreign Minister Visits India

South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin took a two-day visit to India with an aim to make "substantive progress" in the special strategic partnership between the two countries.
Jin held wide-ranging talks with External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and also called on Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar.
Notably, India and South Korea have completed 50 years of diplomatic ties.

Anil Antony, Congress Veteran AK Antony's Son, Joins BJP

Anil Antony, the son of Congress leader and former Union Minister AK Antony, joined the BJP.
Anil Antony, who was a Congress leader from Kerala, quit the party in January following the row over BBC's documentary on the 2002 Gujarat riots and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
BJP leaders Piyush Goyal and V. Murlidharan and the party's Kerala unit chief K. Surendran welcomed the former Congress leader to their party at a formal event.
Anil Antony ran the Congress's social media cell in Kerala before he left the party.

Apr 08, 2023

Former Andhra Chief Minister Joins BJP

Former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy joined the BJP, becoming the second ex-Congress leader from South India to switch sides in as many days, after Anil Antony, the son of Congress veteran from Kerala, A. K. Antony.
Reddy, who served as the last Chief Minister of undivided Andhra Pradesh before the formation of Telangana state in 2014, resigned from the Congress in March 2023 over differences with the party leadership.
Reddy's decision to join the BJP came ahead of the assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh next year (2024), where the ruling YSR Congress and the main opposition Telugu Desam Party are locked in a bitter contest. The move could potentially tip the scales in favour of the BJP, which is hoping to make inroads in the state.

Apr 07, 2023

Rakesh Sinha Presents Development Report of 'Whistling Village' to PM

BJP Rajya Sabha MP Rakesh Sinha presented his development report on Kongthong village in Meghalaya, India's only whistling village, to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The MP, though not hailing from the Northeast, took keen interest in the village and its dying tradition of naming children by whistling tunes and adopted Kongthong in 2019.
I n August 2019, Rakesh adopted the village under the Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana (SAGY) and has been focusing on the development work there, to make it a model village in the region.
SAGY was launched in 2014 under which each Member of Parliament was to adopt the gram panchayat of a village.
Kongthong is located in the East Khasi Hills in Meghalaya and is popular as the 'whistling village' due to its unique tradition of 'Jingrwai Lawbei' under which mothers create a tune for their newborns.

India to Become World's Second-largest Solar Manufacturer by 2026

With 110 gigawatts (GW) of solar photovoltaic (PV) module capacity set to come online in the next three years, India will become self-sufficient and will be the second-largest PV manufacturing country after China, as per a new joint report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) and JMK Research and Analytics.
As per the report, India's cumulative module manufacturing nameplate capacity more than doubled from 18GW in March 2022 to 38GW in March 2023.

Centre Formulates Plans to Rehabilitate Coastal People Hit by Rising Sea Level

Union Minister Jitendra Singh informed the Rajya Sabha that the Union Government has formulated plans to rehabilitate people from low-lying coastal areas who may be adversely impacted due to rising sea levels in the coming decade.
The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) prepared a draft policy on "Mitigation and Rehabilitation measures for people displaced by Coastal and River Erosion" to deal with the extensive displacement of people caused by coastal and river erosion.
The minister pointed out that Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), an autonomous organization of the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), has formulated Coastal Vulnerability Index (CVI) mapping to assess probable implications of rising sea level along the Indian coast.
This exercise has generated maps using seven input parameters: shoreline change rate, sea-level change rate, coastal elevation, coastal slope, coastal geomorphology, significant wave height and tidal range.

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