MAHARASHTRA

Maharashtrawill soon have a dedicated cyber intelligence unit, said deputy chief ministerDevendra Fadnaviswho also holds the Home portfolio. Fadnavis also warned the threat ofurban Naxalismwas huge.

He made the announcement at the concluding session of the two-day conclave of home ministers at Surajkund in Haryana on Friday. The conclave-Chintan Shibir Camp-was chaired by union home ministerAmit Shahand addressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Fadnavis said the unit will be a single dedicated platform which will bring together nationalised and private banks, financial institutions, Social Media platforms, regulatory bodies, cyber Police and technicians, and that a dynamic response system will be built from it. He said given the rise in cyber and financial crimes, the organisation will be prepared to tackle it.

Chief ministerUddhav Thackerayhas announced that the government ofMaharashtrawill give Rs 50 lakh towards the conservation of theJinjifort inTamil Nadu.

This decision was taken on the demand raised byChhatrapati Sambhaji Rajein the meeting of the steering committee on fort conservation in the state.

The Jinji fort in Nadu is known as the fourth capital of theSwarajya. Chhatrapati Rajaram Maharaj, son of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, ruled from here for eight years.

The funds will be deposited with the central archaeological department for the conservation of the palace.

TheMumbai Policehas bagged the national award for smart use offingerprint sciencein the investigation. The award presented by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) was given for the investigation in the Sakinaka rape and murder case. The state CID bagged the rolling trophy after 32 years. It had won the Awards in 1990 and 1975.

Alogoof Kolhapur tourism wasunveiledon the occasion of WorldTourism Day.
The Kolhapur administration is observing Tourism Week, from Sunday. It started with holding events to celebrate the 300th anniversary of re-installation of the idol of Ambabai, famously known as goddess Mahalaxmi.

On the second day, the logo of Kolhapur tourism was unveiled by rural development minister Hasan Mushrif. The logo is handwritten with words of Rajarshi Chhatrapati Shahu Maharaj, who governed the state of Kolhapur a century ago.

A detailed calendar with tourist places and time of the year was also unveiled. Patil launched a website showcasing Kolhapurs rich tourism culture. The information related to the tourist sites, mode of transport and the reviews by the tourists is part of the website. This will focus on development of audio-visual content, to showcase the destinations. A film on Radhanagari sanctuary is made.

This bold step by the Maharashtra government comes at a time while the Union Government is yet to take a call on legalizing or banning cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. This new-age technology sidesteps solutions built on centralized architecture such as DigiLocker, that have a single point of failure irrespective of the protection levels that go into it.

While UP remains at the top of the chart having administered most doses among states at 4.52crore, the number it has managed to fully vaccinate is barely a little over 73lakh.

The maximum vaccinations have been in the age group above 45 years where 74.28lakh have got both doses while 1.01crore have got one dose. In the 18-44 bracket, about 4.5lakh have got vaccinated with both doses while 99.56lakh have got the first dose. Among healthcare workers, 8.97lakh have been fully vaccinated while 3.88lakh have taken a single dose. And over 11lakh frontline workers have been fully vaccinated while a little over 10 lakh have taken the first shot. Among districts, Mumbai has administered the highest doses at 69.66lakh followed by Pune with 59.12lakh doses.

State highways in Pune and Nagpur region inMaharashtrahave registered the highest number of complaints regarding potholes, showed data from the Public Works Department (PWD) for May and June.

The complaint redressal portal to highlight potholed stretches of the highway was launched in Maharashtra recently. It is under the testing phase currently. It may be noted that Nagpur division registered 1,403 complaints, while Pune divisions five districts registered 1,163 complaints.

The active portal aimed to help citizens register complaints from potholes to bad stretches and no roads as they travelled along highways. The current two-month data had both citizens and officials taking note of bad roads. The PWD planned to carry out temporary repairs of the potholes with basic filling in themonsoonseason. The whole stretch would be reconstructed in November.

A new species of scorpion belonging to genus chiromachetes has been discovered by researchers from Thackeray Wildlife Foundation.

This species has been named chiromachetes agasthyamalaiensis as it is endemic to the agasthyamalai mountain range in the western ghats.

The new species can be easily distinguished from all five known congeners by combination of non-overlapping morphological characters such as chela length-width ratio, femur length-width ratio, chela length-movable finger length ratio, the number of pectinal teeth, and subtle colour differences of both the sexes.

The has decided to set up a Backward Classes Commission to collectempirical dataon other backward classes (OBC) Population andreservation.

The state government has decided to set up an independent backward class commission to collect empirical data on the OBCs.

The Supreme Court rejected thestate governmentsreview petition concerningpolitical reservationto the OBCs in local body Elections. It has ruled that reservation in favour of the OBC in local bodies should not exceed the 50% cap determined by it.

The share of Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) allocated by Maharashtra government to healthcare has grown only marginally over the past few years, underlining how political regimes have failed to make it a priority.

Data fromthe NationalHealth Accounts (NHA) Estimates for India 2019-20 indicates Maharashtra’s spending on healthcare was barely 0.8% of its GSDP, a slight increase from the previous four-year Average of 0.7%. Data showed total healthcare expenditure was Rs 77,501 crore of which government’s contribution was just 27% (Rs 20,606 crore).

The state has done poorly compared to the national average, which showed an upward trend in government expenditure as a proportion of total Health expenditurefrom 29% in 2014-2015 to 41.4% in 2019-20. The Centre is spending 1.35% of the GDP on health.

The data shows that bigger states like Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Gujarat are all spending in the range of 0.8-0.9% of their GDP on health, whereas smaller ones like Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Sikkim have managed to take it to around 1.2-1.4%. Northeastern statesMizoramand Arunachal Pradesh spend the most, almost 3.4% of their GSDP in health. Dr Abhay Shukla of the public health movement Jan Arogya Abhiyan said despite being ranked seventh on per capita income among states, Maharashtra is at the bottom in terms of state spending on healthcare. “Hence, the high degree of privatisation and out-of-pocket expenses remain, he said.

As per the NHA report, the state spent Rs 1,675 per capita on healthcare in 2019-20, only a slight increase from the Rs 1,120 spent in 2015-2016. By comparison, Himachal Pradesh spent Rs 3,829, Kerala Rs 2,590, Uttarakhand Rs 2,273 and Tamil Nadu Rs 2039.Biharand UP were among the poorest spenders, allocating Rs 701 and 951 per capita.