NORTH-EASTERN STATES

As new variants of the novel coronavirus spread across the country, a sense of fear has returned among the people of the northeast as no state, except Manipur, has issued any order regarding mandatory testing for travellers from areas where a spike in cases has been recorded.

Silchar and Lilabari in Assam and Agartala airport in Tripura have already withdrawn mandatory testing orders. The other airports in Assam, too, plan to discontinue with such practices from March 1. As the Airports Authority of India strictly follows the recommendations of the respective state governments and district administrations so far as testing at airports are concerned, the statutory body also remains in a fix.

A study has revealed that moths are essential for pollination in northeast India’s Himalayan Environment.

Highlights

The study established that 91 moths are pollinators of 21 different species of Plants in Arunachal Pradesh and within the northeastern Himalayas.

The results are significant as most pollination research focused on daytime pollinators like butterflies and bees, while the contribution of nocturnal pollinators received less scientific attention.

This research may be a part of a project which has been funded by the Ministry of Environment, Forest, and global Climate-change”>Climate Change, and it’s one among the few such large-scale studies during which the research team studied the effect of various altitudes also as various seasons on the ECOLOGY of pollination of the moths.

The study is predicated on field studies conducted in Himalayan terrains, starting from the foothills to elevations of up to 3000 meters, and laboratory investigations of over 1,800 moth proboscides, i.e., the mouthparts of moths.

The state of Arunachal Pradesh was created in 1972. And in 2022, it has been 50 years. Thus, the state is celebrating its 50^thanniversary. On the first day of the month long celebrations, the cabinet made several decisions.

Cabinet decisions

To confer Arunachal Ratna award to Late K A A Raja. The award is one of the highest state Awards of Arunachal Pradesh. He was a former governor.

Financial assistance to 500 . They are to be provided with one lakh rupees each.

Three hundred primary level federations will receive two lakh rupees each

District Level Governance“>Good Governance Index is to be formulated

Selecting fifty schools to develop as the Golden Jubilee Model Schools. Rs 12 crores of financial assistance per school has been estimated for this project. In all the model school project will receive 500 crores of rupees.

365 Infrastructure projects are to be inaugurated and completed between 2022 and 2023.

Golden Jubilee Merit Award for students competing in class 12 and entering premier institutions such as IITs, IIMs, Aiims, etc.

Additional 5000 rupees over the existing 20,000 rupees for the Dulhari Kanya Scheme.

Chief ministerN BirenSingh launched a dedicated Inner Line Permit (ILP) portal at his office complex.

Following a prolonged mass campaign to safeguard the indigenous Population of the state and Biren Singhs pressure, the Centre had extended the ILP system in the state in December 2019. It came into effect from January 1, 2020.

Speaking on the occasion, Biren said ILPs were earlier issued manually at Maogatebordering Myanmar, the Imphal airport and Jiribam bordering Assam. With the launch of a dedicated portal, ILPs can now be issued online by DCs and labour commissioners, he added.

The Indian Council of Medical Research (Icmr) has launched drone Services to deliver Covid-19 vaccine in Mokokchung district.

During the formal launch of i-drone delivery system, Vaccines were aerially transported from Mokokchung chief medical officer’s office to the primary Health centre (PHC) in Longsa village in presence of Mokokchung deputy commissioner Limawapang Jamir, superintendent of Police Aotula Imchen and deputy chief medical officer Dr Kibangkumba.

Two districts, Mokokchung and Tuensang, were chosen for studying the feasibility of drone technology in delivery of medical supplies in Nagaland.

Tripurachief ministerManik Sahaalong with Education ministerRatan Lal Nathon Tuesday inaugurated the first English medium general degree college of the state in the city with 100 intake capacity.

The five basic subjects of the arts stream, including compulsory Bengali and English, are being taught this academic session that began last month. Renovating an old Teachers Training College, the Tripura government has built the general degree college at the cost of over Rs 1 crore as committed in the budget this year.

In the first step, the exact syllabus of CBSE has been introduced, followed by recruiting a large number of trained teachers and training up to over 40,000 existing teachers of government schools and also improving the student-teacher ratio going by the national Average.

A link aircraft is set to connect three cities in the region giving passengers for onward connectivity with the rest of the country.

Expanding aerial connectivity between Kolkata Guwahati, Guwahati Aizawl, Aizawl Shillong, Shillong Aizawl, Aizawl Guwahati and Guwahati Kolkata routes. The service will be available every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

The frontier state of Mizoram bordering Myanmar, a gateway to the northeast, has been the focus. Scindia said the city has an immense importance in the tourism and economic sector.

Under the UDAN scheme, the Centre has connected cities that had no mention on the aviation map. We have already started 60 Airports and 387 routes, out of which 100 routes are awarded in the northeast alone, and 50 are already operational. In 2014, only six airports were operational in northeast, now we have grown to 15 airports in seven years, Scindia noted. In addition to this, he added that under the KRISHI UDAN Yojna, the Centre has identified 16 airports to enhance the export opportunities of the region.

After over a year, crucial meetings between the Government of India envoy and Naga insurgent outfits began here on Monday to settle the long-pending Naga political issue involving various bodies, including the NSCN (IM). Officials in Kohima said that former special director of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and Central government representative A.K. Mishra and the NSCN (IM) Leadership led by Thuingaleng Muivah held a meeting at the Police complex in Chumoukedima.

NSCN-IM leader Rh Raising told the media after the meeting that everything should be initiated on the basis of the Framework agreement signed with the government in 2015.