KERALA

The cabinet has decided to register Kerala Space Park as a Society by the name K-Space, under the Travancore Cochin Literary Scientific Charitable Societies Registration Act, 1955.

The government also decided to hand over 18.56 acres from the land owned by the Technopark in the capital for the space park society. The cabinet has also decided to grant Rs 2 crore as seed capital for the society.

The draft agreement and the rules of the proposed society have been cleared by the government. The cabinet also decided to create 10 posts on contract basis in the new society. Those employees who are in excess in the IT parks, Kerala Startup Mission and Kerala State IT Ltd will be given priority for appointment in the society on contract basis.

The initial trend, where the public used to rush to the Covid-19 vaccination centres but shortage of vaccine supply caused even law and order problems, seems to have been reversed.
As per the latest figures of the (till Friday), there is a stock of 20.44 lakh doses ofCovid vaccinein state.

At the same time, there are more than 12 lakh people, who are yet to turn up for availing the second dose of vaccine even after completing a month after they became eligible for the second dose.

The state has been able to make optimal use of vaccine doses since the beginning of the vaccination drive. The figures show that the wastage of Covaxin in the state is just 0.11%, while in the case of Covishield, the wastage is a negative figure (-4.76%) which would mean that it could administer Vaccines to more number of public than the allotted number of doses.

Even among the tribal Population, the vaccination figures show that 90% of those in the age group of 18-44 years and 96% of those above 45 years have been administered the first dose, while it is 44% and 70%, respectively, when it comes to the second dose.

an expatriate industrial group, is launching a new biscuit manufacturing facility based inKerala, informed theDepartment of Industries, Government of Kerala.

For this, an agreement was reached at the Meet the Investor event organized by Industries MinisterP Rajeeveand according to this, the group will immediately invest Rs 150 crore to create a new brand called Craze Biscuits. The official launch will be next year.

Azcco Groupinformed the minister that they will be investing overall Rs 500 crore in the state by 2030. ASCO is an group led byAbdul Aziz, an expatriate businessman who runs supermarket chains in the Middle East.Azizsaid the new venture aims to gain a share of the ever-expanding biscuit market in Kerala. The firm will launch thirty-nine varieties of biscuits during the first phase, he added.

The construction of Craze Factory at Kozhikode KSIDC Industrial Park will be completed this year itself. The one lakh square foot factory will use German and Turkish machines and technology.

Theassemblywill consider settingupan ad hoccommitteeso as to give recommendations regarding modifications in the assembly proceedings, including the inordinate delay in giving replies to the MLAs on several occasions, speaker M B Rajesh has ruled.

He said that the chair would hold discussions with the chief minister and the opposition leader and take a call in this regard.

Jacob said that on several occasions, the answers get delayed by months or even years that the relevance of the question itself would be lost by the time the MLAs receive the answers.
He said that questions asked under the RTI Act would be better answered than raised in the assembly, as the RTI Act has some penal provisions for delayed answers over a particular time frame.

The Institute of Land and Disaster Management (ILDM), under the revenue department, is set to launch the countrys first AICTE-approved master of business administration (MBA) course in disaster management.
The move aims to equip aspiring candidates with the necessary knowledge and skills to effectively manage and mitigate the impact of disasters.

Affiliated to theKeralaUniversity, the MBA programme will offer an opportunity for students to excel in disaster management and contribute to building a more resilient Society. It assumes importance in the wake of the state witnessing multiple types of disasters and requiring the Services of experts.

The advantage that ILDM has is that the organization deals with training government officials in these matters, and comprises experienced professionals with extensive backgrounds in disciplines such as agronomy, Geography, disaster management and social work. Moreover, the programme also offers insights from guest faculties, including renowned experts from international institutions specialising in areas such as language Education, intercultural Communication, and technology for disaster management.

Three government IT parks andKerala Startup Mission(KSUM), the four major IT establishments under the , will have independent chief executive officers (CEOs) soon.

The state government has invited applications for the post of CEOs forTechnopark Thiruvananthapuramand InfoparkKochi and the decision regarding the appointment of CEO for Cyber Park Kozhikode is expected to be announced in the coming days.

Currently, the three IT parks have a common CEO and the same person is also heading KSUM. It is expected that the appointment of separate CEOs would give a boost to the developmental activities of government IT parks. A separate CEO for KSUM would also bring leverage to the activities of Startup Mission, it is expected.

Technopark Thiruvananthapuram is one of Indias largest IT parks and employs more than 64,000 IT professionals. The park is spread across 724 acre in 5 phases, housing 465 companies. Infopark Kochi is also one of the fastest growing government IT parks which is spread over 260 acre of campus, across two phases and housing 425 companies employing more than 56,000 professionals.

The government has appointed a three-member committee to submit recommendations for the reforms of redundant rules and regulations in industrial laws, said state industries minister P Rajeeve.

Addressing mediapersons on the sidelines of an interaction with industrialists, Rajeeve said the committee has been asked to submit its report in three months. National university of advanced legal studies (NUALS) vice-chancellor K C Sunny would chair the committee in which former civil servant T Nandakumar and law reforms commission vice-chairman K Sasidharan Nair would be members.

KSIDC would coordinate the functioning of the committee and the panel would hear industrialists and public before finalizing its report, Rajeeve said. The industries minister is holding a series of interactive sessions with representatives, following allegations by Kitex group against hostility meted out to investors and industrialists in the state.

According to the Education ministry’s latestNational Institutional Ranking Framework(NIRF), only four institutions from Kerala secured a spot in the top 100, similar to previous year’s ranking.

Kerala University,Thiruvananthapuram, which secured 47th rank by improving five ranks, is the topper from the state followed by MG University (MGU), Kottayam, which slipped from its previous rank of 51 to 52. Other two institutions are NIT Calicut (54), which did not feature last year, and CUSAT, which improved its rank from 69 in 2022 to 63.
IIM Kozhikode secured third rank (fifth in 2022) in the list of top 100 management institutes in India. Other institutes from Kerala are NIT-Calicut (75) and Rajagiri Business School (83).

Among the list of top 100 universities, KU with 24th rank (40 in 2022) is the state topper. MGU secured 31st rank (30 in 2022) and CUSAT secured 37th rank (41 in 2022). Calicut University secured 70th rank (69 in 2022).

Yet another commonbiomedical wastetreatment facility (CBWTF) has become operational in the state from Monday. The new facility under the Kerala Enviro Ltd (KEIL) has been set up at Ambalamedu in Ernakulam with a capacity of treating 16 tonnes of biomedical waste per day.

At present, IMAs IMAGE, a common biomedical waste treatment facility in Palakkad, is the only one in the state which has been exclusively handling all the biomedical wastes. In view of the pande,ic situation, IMAGE had stretched its capacity and added new equipment to treat the entire waste coming from Covid care centres. IMAGE has 16,922 government and private healthcare establishments as its clientele.

The mental healthcare burden in Kerala is 11%, with almost 13% of households pushed below the https://exam.pscnotes.com/POVERTY-line”>Poverty Line due to expenditure on mental illness, according to an all-India study. Though this is lower thanthe nationalmental healthcare burden Average (18%), with 21% of households pushed into poverty, the concern is that the higher proportion of people with mental illness is seen in the economically productive age group (19-55 years).

To estimate the out-of-pocket expenditure (OOPE), catastrophic Health expenditure (CHE), and poverty impact due to mental illness in India, the researchers acquired data from the 76th round data of the National Sample Survey (NSS), conducted between July to December 2018.

In NSS, 5,76,569 individuals were studied, of which 6,679 persons reported mental illness during the survey. Using this data, the researchers calculated yearly out-of-pocket expenditure (OOPE), monthly OOPE and average monthly total OOPE. The findings showed that several states reported a higher mental healthcare burden than the national average. The mental healthcare burden was highest in Uttarakhand (39%), followed by Sikkim (32%), Himachal Pradesh (24%), Telangana (22%),Maharashtra(21%) and Punjab (17%). On the other hand,Mizoram(3%), Andaman and Nicobar Islands (1%) and Puducherry (2%) reported lower healthcare burden.