General Awareness

NATIONAL AFFAIRS - December 2018

Dec 2018

Mar 19, 2021

Karnataka Govt. Plans to Produce, Sell Gold Coins with State Emblem

The Karnataka government is planning to open jewellery retail outlets and promote the yellow metal with 'Brand Karnataka' image.
The government is also planning to produce and sell gold coins with state emblem 'Gandaberunda' (mythical two-headed bird) embedded in them, and aiming to partner with private jewellers.
This landmark initiative will help government generate more revenue and employment opportunities.
Initially the retail outlets will be opened in Tier-1 cities and based on customer response they will be opened in Tier-2 cities.
The government is also planning to set up a Special Economic Zone exclusively for jewellery in the 'Kalyana Karnataka' region, where it is proposing to set up a jewellery park in one of the locations.

Dr. Harsh Vardhan Appointed as Chairman of International Body Stop TB Partnership Board

Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare Dr. Harsh Vardhan has been appointed as the Chairman of the international body Stop TB Partnership Board. He was appointed in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the movement to eradicate Tuberculosis from India by 2025. Dr. Harsh Vardhan will serve a three-year term, commencing from July this year.
The Stop TB Partnership is a unique international body with the power to align actors all over the world in the fight against TB. The participation of a wide range of constituencies gives this global body the credibility and the broad range of medical, social and financial expertise needed to defeat TB. The Partnership's vision is a TB-free world.
The appointment of Dr. Harsh Vardhan as the Chair of this prestigious global body is a proud recognition of India's political commitment to the eradication of TB. Established in the year 2000, the 'Stop TB Partnership' is mandated to eliminate Tuberculosis as a public health problem.

Arindam Bagchi Next Spokesperson of Ministry of External Affairs

Senior diplomat Arindam Bagchi is set to be the new spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), succeeding Anurag Srivastava.
A 1995-batch Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officer, Bagchi is currently serving as the joint secretary (north) at the MEA headquarters.
Srivastava will assume charge as the joint secretary (north) in place of Bagchi.
Bagchi served as India's ambassador to Croatia from November 2018 to June 2020.
He was India's Deputy High Commissioner to Sri Lanka and also served at the Prime Minister's Office as a director.

Parliamentary Panel for Use of 'Officials of the Union of India' in Place of Central Government O...

A parliamentary committee has suggested the use of the term "officials of the Union of India" in place of "central government officials" for those serving in all the three organs of governance – the executive, the legislative and the judiciary.
In its report, the panel observed that the executive, the legislature and the judiciary have well-defined roles and they all function under the Constitution.
The committee is of the considered opinion that these three organs of governance, by and large, constitute the Union government.
The committee desires the term 'Central Government' to be substituted by 'Union of India' and the officials of the three organs of governance of the Union government, henceforth, be referred to as Officials of the Union of India.

EU Joins India-promoted Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure

The 27-member European Union has joined India's Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI) initiative, following its endorsement of the charter of the CDRI earlier.
Launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2019 at the UN Climate Change Summit, the CDRI is an international platform involving the public and private sector, aiming to promote resilience of new and existing infrastructure systems to climate and disaster risks while supporting sustainable development.
The CDRI is a welcome initiative to help tackle these objectives in a multilateral approach, which will help implementation of the Paris Agreement, through both global reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and enhanced climate change adaptation action.

Mar 18, 2021

No Decision on Nationwide NRC Yet

The Centre said that it had not taken any decision on the nationwide rollout of the National Register of Citizens (NRC).
Union Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai was replying to a question in the Rajya Sabha on whether the Central government had any plans to implement the NRC throughout the country.
The NRC was updated in Assam under the supervision of the Supreme Court. When the final NRC was published on August 31, 2019, a total of 19.06 lakh people were excluded out of the total of 3,30,27,661 applicants, which created a ripple across the country.

No Proposal to Appoint Regulator for Social Media

The government informed Parliament that there is no proposal with the IT ministry to set up a regulator for social media.
Union IT and Communications Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, however, said that the government has released Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, under the IT Act that specifies the due diligence to be followed by all the intermediaries, including the social media intermediaries.
The government in February had announced sweeping regulations for social media firms like Facebook and Twitter as well as OTT players such as Netflix, requiring them to remove any content flagged by authorities within 36 hours and setting up a complaint redressal mechanism with an officer being based in the country.

Mar 17, 2021

Union Cabinet Cleared Proposal For Setting Up Of Development Finance Institution

Union Cabinet has cleared the setting up of a Development Finance Institution.
Development Finance Institution will also have some tax benefits for a 10-year long period.
Cabinet approved introduction of Bill for setting up of a new infrastructure focused Development Financial Institution as a provider, enabler and catalyst for infrastructure financing.

As Many as 22 of World's 30 Most Polluted Cities are in India: Report

Twenty-two of the world's 30 most polluted cities are in India, with Delhi being ranked as the most polluted capital city globally.
The report is prepared by Swiss organisation, IQAir, in the form of the 'World Air Quality Report, 2020', which has released globally.
The report, however, shows that Delhi's air quality improved by approximately 15 per cent from 2019 to 2020.
It said that despite the improvement, Delhi ranked as the 10th most polluted city and the top polluted capital city in the world.
Besides Delhi, the 21 other Indian cities among the 30 most polluted cities in the world are Ghaziabad, Bulandshahar, Bisrakh Jalalpur, Noida, Greater Noida, Kanpur, Lucknow, Meerut, Agra and Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh, Bhiwari in Rajasthan, Faridabad, Jind, Hisar, Fatehabad, Bandhwari, Gurugram, Yamunanagar, Rohtak and Dharuhera in Haryana, and Muzaffarpur in Bihar.

Mar 16, 2021

Ayush Export Promotion Council to be Set up

The Minister of Commerce and Industry, Piyush Goyal, informed the Parliament that AYUSH ministry is holding consultations with the stakeholder to explore the setting up of an AYUSH Export Promotion Council (EPC). The government is also exploring the procedural steps which would be involved in setting up the council.
The "Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI)" has been tasked to coordinate with the Department of Commerce and the Indian Industry members who have shown their interest in forming the corpus for AYUSH export promotion council. Ministry of AYUSH has also set up a task force to expand the trade classification, quality control and standardization of Indian Systems of Medicine (ISM) & Herbal Products. The recommendations provided by the task force are under examination by the government current.

IPU President on a Week-long Visit to India

Inter Parliamentary Union President Mr. Duarte Pacheco called on Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and witnessed the proceedings of the Upper House.
Mr. Pacheco is on a week-long visit to India on the invitation of Indian Parliament. He is scheduled to attend a felicitation ceremony and address the Parliament Members under the auspices of the Indian Parliamentary Group (IPG) in Central Hall of Parliament House.
Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) formed in 1889, is one of the oldest and largest international Parliamentary body consisting of more than 179 Members. IPU espouses for the cause of promoting democracy across the world and take up issues of international importance, such as, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Climate Change, Gender Equality, etc.

Punjab Second among all States in Contributing to Army's Rank and File

Piping its neighbours, Punjab, often referred to as the sword army of the nation, has the second highest number of soldiers, other than officers, serving in the Army amongst all states and union territories in the country.
The strength of army personnel from Punjab is 89,088, according to information placed by the Ministry of Defence in Parliament. This accounts for 7.7 per cent of the Army's rank and file, even though its share of the national population is 2.3 per cent.
With 1,67,557 soldiers, Uttar Pradesh tops the list of states contributing manpower to the Army. While Uttar Pradesh, the nation's most populous state, makes up 16.5 per cent of the country's population, its share in the rank and file is 14.5 per cent. Maharashtra, with 87,835 soldiers occupies the third slot followed by Rajasthan, with 79,481 soldiers.

Mar 15, 2021

Andhra CM Seeks Bharat Ratna Award for Designer of Indian Flag

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy urged the Centre to confer the Bharat Ratna upon Pingali Venkaiah who designed the National Flag, posthumously.
He also felicitated Ghantasala Sitamahalakshmi, daughter of late Venkaiah, marking the inauguration of the 75-week-long "Azadi Ka Amrut Mahotsav" in the state.
The Chief Minister presented Rs. 75 lakh to Sitamahalakshmi and wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi requesting that the Centre confer the highest civilian award Bharat Ratna on Venkaiah posthumously.
Pingali Venkaiah, from Krishna district, designed the National Flag and presented it to Mahatma Gandhi during his visit to Vijayawada city on April 1, 1921.
On July 22, 1947, the Constituent Assembly adopted the flag designed by Pingali Venkaiah as the National Tricolour.

Vietnam to Open Consulate in Chandigarh

Seeking increased cooperation from North-based industries and travel community, the Embassy of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam to India is planning to open a consulate in Chandigarh. It also plans to propose a direct flight from Chandigarh to main cities of Vietnam.
"We are working on modalities, and soon we will have our consulate in Chandigarh to seek greater cooperation with industries and travel community in Chandigarh, Punjab, Haryana, J&K, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh.
Both Punjab and Haryana have emerged as significant markets sharing economic and tourism potentials with Vietnam. Punjab is a hub of textile-based industries, including yarn, ready-made garments and hosiery, pharmaceutical and agricultural products, whose exports feature Vietnam among India's top 15 trading partners.

Merger of Rashtriya Lok Samta Party (RLSP) with the Janata Dal (United)

After months of speculation, Upendra Kushwaha merged his Rashtriya Lok Samta Party (RLSP) with the Janata Dal (United) in the presence of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
Kushwaha had left the JD (U) in 2013 and formed the RLSP that year.
Soon after the merger, Nitish Kumar announced the appointment of Kushwaha as Chairman of National Parliamentary Board of JD (U), with immediate effect.

Bengaluru Airport Gets India's first Dedicated Express Cargo Terminal

Kempegowda International Airport Bengaluru (KIAB) announced the opening of the country's first dedicated express cargo terminal, which would help the private airport operator to handle over 25 per cent more cargo annually.
The express cargo market for business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) sectors has tremendous potential to grow over the next decade.
It is on account of a larger playing field with multiple service providers, improved transit time, and value-added services and the new facility, set up exclusively for export and import of international couriers, would cater to this demand.

Jaishankar Discusses Bilateral Cooperation with Syrian Foreign Minister

External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar discussed bilateral cooperation with his Syrian counterpart Dr. Fayssal Mekdad.
India has taken steps to strengthen food security in Syria and had gifted 2000 MT of rice last month.
The two countries have historically enjoyed close and friendly relations.
India has always stood in solidarity with the people of Syria and the bilateral engagement has continued apace even during the years of internal conflict there through a number of development and capacity building projects.

Haryana Govt. Presents Rs. 1.55 Trillion Budget

The Haryana government presented a Rs. 1.55-trn Budget for the 2021-22 fiscal year, with health, agriculture, and infrastructure identified as key priority areas. Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar who also holds the finance department portfolio, presented his second Budget in the State Assembly.
Presenting the paperless Budget, Khattar proposed no fresh tax. He proposed a budget of Rs. 1.55 trillion for FY22, an increase of 13 per cent over FY21 of Rs 1.38 trillion. The Budget outlay comprises 25 per cent as capital expenditure of Rs. 38,718 crore and 75 per cent as revenue expenditure of Rs. 1.17 crore. Khattar proposed to raise the Old Age pension to Rs. 2,500 per month from April 1 of this year from present Rs. 2,250.

Chhattisgarh Ranks First in Country in Terms of Providing Employment under MGNREGA

Chhattisgarh ranked first in the country in terms of providing employment under MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act).
As per an official release from the state government, in the current financial year 2020-21, employment of 16,06,84,000 man-days has been created so far, against the target of creating 15 crore man-days of employment, as sanctioned by the central government.
The statement said that this year, a new record of providing employment for the highest number of man-days under MGNREGA has been set in the state, adding that more than 107% of the given target for providing employment under MGNREGA has been achieved this year so far, with more than two weeks left for the completion of the financial year.

Uttarakhand CM Expands His Cabinet

Uttarakhand Chief Minister Tirath Singh Rawat expanded his Cabinet, inducting 11 ministers who were sworn in by the state governor. Governor Baby Rani Maurya administered the oath of office and secrecy to the new ministers in a simple function at the Raj Bhavan.
Earlier on March 10, Chief Minister Rawat was sworn in all alone. Barring the newly-appointed state BJP president Madan Kaushik, all other state ministers during former Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat's term have been made ministers in the new government.
Besides the old ministers, four new faces have also been inducted into TS Rawat's council of ministers.

Panel for Air Quality Management Shuts Down

The central government's Commission for Air Quality Management in National Capital Region and Adjoining Areas has been shut down within five months of its constitution.
The commission, which was established by the Centre in October last year, has shut down as the ordinance under which it was set up has lapsed.
Union Environment Secretary R P Gupta said that since the ordinance was not introduced in Parliament within six weeks of its convention, it has lapsed and consequently, the commission also stands shut.
The ordinance never became an Act. Any ordinance has to be introduced within six weeks of the convening of Parliament. It did not happen, so the ordinance has lapsed and hence, the commission is dissolved.

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