KERALA

TheKeralaMaritime Board (KMB) is unable to start shipping service from the oldVizhinjamport despite receiving ISPS code from the mercantile marine department ascustomsdepartment is yet to issue Consent over it.
The board had taken all necessary measures to start the custodian ship service from the port and also arranged a private ship. However, customs had denied consent citing lack of International Ship andPort Facility Security Code(ISPS).

The officer further said there is no objection for the port to resume crew change at the port. Crew change is a good source of revenue, the officer said. Through crew change, the state received revenue of Rs 10 crore in two years. After all, crew change will also help boost domestic businesses, such as hotel, taxi and other allied sectors, the officer said.
A cargo ship service from Vizhinjam to Mali was there from the port from 2007 to 2017 and the board was operating it smoothly. It ran on profit for 10 years, but later the private firm withdrew from it citing internal issues.

Cochin University of Science and Technology (Cusat), which has been winning the chancellor’s award for best university, has been cited as the top among the nine major universities in Kerala.

According to the QS world university rankings 2021, Cusat has 111 scientists having more than 500 citations. Of these, 50 have been included in the top list of the university, with all of them having an H index of more than 13 and 39 faculty has an Hindex of more than 15.

Interestingly, a good number of these ratings are by young and middle-level faculty who are largely assistant professors. In terms of the number of scientists in the faculty, Kerala University has 37, Calicut has 33 and MG university has 21. The numbers are comparatively less among the newer universities like Kufos, KVASU and Kalam technical university.

The impact of the globalised finance has become so powerful in the contemporary world that the nation-states are forced to play a subservient role and are deprived of the opportunities to pursue independent policies, according to economist and former vice-chairman ofKeralaplanning board Prof Prabhat Patnaik.

The finance capital blocks the possibilities of the Growth in EMPLOYMENT and real wages even while drastically pushing up labour productivity, through the introduction of technologies. This also leads to cutting down the bargaining power of the labour, he said. Privatisation of public sector enterprises aggravates the erosion in the bargaining power of labour.

A major consequence of the growing influence of globalised finance is the crisis it unleashes on petty production, including peasant Agriculture-notes-for-state-psc-exams”>Agriculture. The finance capital forces the nation-states to withdraw the support given to the peasant agriculture and other informal sectors, and numerous such instances can be seen in the Indian context also. The government is sometimes forced to withdraw such measures because of the farmers protests, Prof Patnaik said. According to him the nation-states are being pressured to fix a limit on by the finance capital. Many nation states are embracing neo-fascist policies to address the issues like over production and crisis in petty production, precipitated by finance capital, Prof Patnaik said.

With 1,92,481 guest workers in the state,Keralahas started the process of registering them for vaccination. Teams led by district labour officers are visiting all local camps and areas to record the numbers eligible for vaccinations.

Ernakulam district with a total of 47,296 persons has the highest number of guest workers, followed by Kannur with 27,279 people. According to thelabour department, most are in the age group of 18-44 years. Most of them do not have any comorbidities. Awareness drives are being conducted among the migrants, especially plantation workers on the need for vaccination.

Notices have been issued with call centre numbers in Hindi, , Odia, Bengali, Assamese and Telugu.

The funding for the Health welfare and vaccination would be done under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY).

Thelargest contingent so far of over 4,000 Women is preparing to travel for Haj without mehram(male companion) with the first flight expected to leave on May 21. Over 2,800 of these women are from Kerala. The women in the state have taken the lead each year since 2018 when policy changes for the first time enabled Muslim women above 45 years of age to travel in groups of four or more without mehram forHaj.

Building on the earlier policy (2018-22), the Haj policy 2023 also created the option for single women in the same age group to also apply as individuals and in keeping with the guidelines enabled theHaj Committeeof India to organise them in groups of four or more.

There are 4,313 women, the largest contingent so far, who will be undertaking Haj in the without mehram category. They hail from across 25 states and Union Territories. Kerala (2,807) tops the list followed by UP (222), Nadu(195),Maharashtra(162), Karnataka (140), Jammu & Kashmir (132), Madhya Pradesh (128), West Bengal (82), Telangana (76) and Gujarat (70). There are three women from Goa and four fromHaryana.

A website of the Samagra Shiksha, Kerala, for children with special needs now has over 1,000 Videos related to academics and life skills.

The website (http://ssakerala.in/ie/), still being uploaded with resource materials, has Whiteboard videos for all subjects for classes 1 to 10. The videos have the same lessons adapted to suit differently abled students in categories such as visual impairment, hearing impairment, cerebral palsy, autism spectrum disorder, and intellectual disability. The Whiteboard videos for Plus One and Plus Two students are under preparation.

Talking Text, audio texts for visually challenged students from classes 1 to 12, in all subjects will also be uploaded in a few days. The audio texts are being prepared by special educators at Samagras block resource centres as per a fixed format.

The Centre has offered the cash-strapped Rs 150 crore that can be spent in the next two months if it scraps all the government vehicles that are more than 15 years old.

It has been said that the scrapping old government vehicles is part of the larger scheme of theministry of road transportand highways (MoRTH) to reduce old, unfit and polluting vehicles in the country. The Centre has earmarked Rs 2,000 crore as incentives to the states for scrapping the old government vehicles under the scheme. The states have been placed under four categories with respect to the vehicle Population and density, in whichKeralafalls in the category-two, which would be offered Rs 150 crore each.

The state has been asked to come up with an order specifying the number of government vehicles that it would scrap, scrap them at the registered vehicle scrapping facility (RVSF), and share the proof of scrapping the vehicles with the MoRTH. After examining the state’s achievement, the MoRTH would then recommend the ministry of finance to release the incentive for the state.

The Union and state governments should take proactive steps to establish dedicated drug treatment and rehabilitation centres for children, recommended the regional judicial colloquium onPocso Act, juvenilejustice, and drug abuse among children that was organized here by the Kerala .

The colloquium for the five southern states ofTamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh,Telangana, Karnataka, and Kerala made the recommendation on Sunday, the final day of the two-day programme held at Kochi Marriott Hotel. The programme was aimed at sensitizing the stakeholders in different domains of the Justice delivery system handling cases involving children.

Other recommendations of the colloquium to the state governments include the implementation of theNavchetnalife skills and drug Education for school children module launched by the Union Government in schools for early prevention of drug abuse.

With an objective to address water scarcity inKochi,Kerala water authority(KWA) is planning to plug the transmission loss, which is one of the major reasons for water shortage in the city and neighbouring local bodies.

Digging up of roads for identifying the location of leakage is one of the major hindrances in the way of addressing the issue and KWA has introduced water stethoscope, a device to identify the leak without digging roads or with little digging. This will expedite the process of identifying leaks and plugging it.

According to the data with KWA, at least 22 to 25% of water supplied in the city is being lost during transmission. Leakage and theft are the main reasons for transmission loss.

KWA is to procure at least 40 water stethoscopes to identify leaks in the city and adjoining areas. KWA also plans to organize a workshop to train officials on how to use the device. KWA authorities have instructed officials to map the distribution Network in their limits.