GOA

Karnataka chief minister Basavaraj Bommai has written to his Goa counterpart Pramod Sawant seeking at least at least one acre of land to establish a Kannada bhavan for the promotion of Kannada Art and Culture.

Efforts to procure land in Goa by the Karnataka government have turned futile so far.

Therefore, the only possibility is that the government of Goa be kind enough to allot a minimum extent of one acre of land for the construction of the Kannada bhavan in Goa at a place where more Kannadigas reside. It is pertinent to mention here that government of Karnataka has established a Konkani academy long back, and our government provided Rs 3 crore for the construction of the Konkani academy at Mangaluru.

The Goan Welfare Association, Qatar, has been pushing fordual for Portuguese passport holders having Goan origin.

Association president Simon DSilva at a programme for the Goan community in Dubai, announced an NRI Global Convention with a one-point agenda to demand dual citizenship for Portuguese passport holders.

On his visits to the UK, he said he found that some Goans holding Portuguese passports have never been to Portugal nor speak Portuguese, but work in the UK instead.

To support Goas agricultural sector, the department has approachedGMRGoa International Limited (GGIAL) to set up a packaging-cum-sorting facility for agricultural produce. The Agriculture-notes-for-state-psc-exams”>Agriculture department hopes to build an integrated pack house facility which can be used to export fresh fruits and vegetables by flight.

Agriculture ministerRavi Naiksaid the state is making efforts to strengthen the agriculture Logistics sector which can help reduce wastage and improve price discovery.

Alphonso and a team of officials from the department had a meeting with GGIAL officials to discuss the proposal. Lack of certified perishable pack houses and accredited testing labs in Goa hinder the export of vegetables and fruit not just from Goa but districts of neighbouring states as well.

Governmentdepartments often take up treeplantationinpublicspaces like parks and gardens, by the seashore, along roads and by banks of rivers and lakes. To ensure that this helps and suits the local ECOLOGY, Goa is set to getnormstostandardisethe practice.

The authority has accordingly formed a technical committee tasked with studying the practices in other states and framing guidelines for government departments in Goa to follow with respect to tree plantation.

The authority has also decided that from now on only bigger saplings should be planted as part of compensatory afforestation. Any agency taking up infrastructural projects, like construction of roads, etc, will also have to plant mature saplings to ensure better survival of the plant.

The has released Rs 25.3 lakh as incentives to three IT companies, three whole years after the Goa IT Policy, 2018, was formulated.

This is the first time that the department of information and technology has ever released any incentives under the policy.

The empowered committee, headed by chief minister Pramod Sawant, approved the disbursal of Rs 4.5 lakh for Transerve Technologies, Rs 10.5 lakh for Online Productivity solutions and Rs 10.3 lakh for Inbetween Software Development.

The committee, which includes IT minister Jennifer Monserrate and two other Industry representatives, also gave an in-principle nod for Rs 30.3 lakh to be disbursed to Sapna Group, subject to certain conditions being met and documentary compliances.

The department of information and technology had received 25 applications for incentives, of which 10 were screened and approved by its internal review committee. The panel rejected 12 applications and withheld one for further scrutiny, while two applications required additional documentation.

While Goa has at least 100 startups and IT companies, just 21 firms applied for registration under the IT Policy, of which 15 were approved.

However, it appears from the figures that a general fear of the pandemic could also have kept students across various sections of Society from entering the school system, as the biggest drop was seen in new enrolments that take place at the Class I level. The number of students registering for Class I came down by as many as 2,285 students in 2020-21 over the previous year.

In 2020-21, 895 fewer girls and 1,390 fewer boys entered the school system at Class I.
Also, the enrolment in schools show a dip at the primary school level from Classes I to IV across institutes runs by different managements government, aided and private.

The Goa government has decided to further postpone the implementation of the Motor Vehicle (Amendment) Act, 2019, to next year, minister of transport Mauvin Godinho said.
The informal decision has been made to implement the new fines and new regulations from April next year onwards, he said.

The new law came into force on September 1, 2019, and all states were expected to implement it. But after some governments, including Gujarat and Uttarakhand, raised concerns about some of the hiked fines, they lowered penalties for certain traffic violations.

The state cabinet on Wednesday is likely to decide on the implementation of the amended Motor Vehicles Act with bare minimum fines for traffic violators.

The , which is trying to curb the disturbance caused by noisy open-air parties and events along Goa’s coast, has finalised a Pune-based firm offering ‘Polish technology’ to help monitor Noise Pollution on 12 beaches, for now.

Goa State Pollution Control Board (GSPCB) chairman Mahesh Patil said that it has entered a five-year contract with Velan Technologies, which will install equipment made to meet the norms of the EU and the United States Environmental Protection Agency.

The 12 spots include party hotspots like Baga, Calangute, Candolim, Vagator, Colva, and Morjim, among others.

Emphasising that Goa Police should ensure a crime-free Environment in the state, director general of police (DGP)Mukesh Kumar Meena said that this can be achieved if policemen work sincerely, honestly and with dedication.

DGP said that a crime-free environment in the state can be achieved if policemen work sincerely, honestly and with dedication.

Meena praised police personnel for Goas crime detection rate, which he said is quite high compared to other states.