RAJASTHAN

Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot allotted portfolios, a day after expanding the council of ministers on Sunday when as many as 15 Congress MLAs took the oath of office. While 11 assumed the post of cabinet ministers, four were sworn in as ministers of state.

Cabinet minister with portfolios:

1) Ashok Gehlot – Finance, , Home and Justice, IT & Communication

2) Dr BD Kalla – Education, Arts, Literature, Culture & ASI

3) Shanti Dhariwal – Local self-development, Urban development and housing, legal consultancy office, parliamentary affairs

4) Parsadilal Meena- Medical and Health, medical health and Services (ESI), excise

5) Lal Chand Kataria – Agriculture-notes-for-state-psc-exams”>Agriculture, animal husbandry, Fisheries

6) Pramod Bhaya – Mines and petroleum, gaupalan

7) Uday Lal Anjana – Co-operative

8) Pratap Singh Khachariawas – Food and civil supplies, consumer affairs

9) Saleh Mohammad – Minority affairs, waqf

10) Hemaram Chaudhary – Forest, Environment and Climate-change”>Climate Change

11) Mahendrajeet Singh Malviya – Winter Resources, IGNP, water resource planning department

12) Mahesh Joshi – PHED, groundwater

13) Ramlal Jat – Revenue

14) Ramesh Meena – Panchayati Raj and rural development

15) Vidhvendra Singh – Tourism, civil aviation

16) Mamta Bhupesh Bairwa – Women and child welfare, child Empowerment, planning

17) Bhajan Lal Jatav – PWD

18) Tika Ram Jully – Social justice and empowerment and jail

19) Govind Ram Meghwal – Disaster Management and relief, statistics, policy planning

20) Shakuntala Rawat – Industry, state enterprises

Ministers of state with portfolios:

1) Arjun Singh Bamania – Tribal area development, groundwater

2) Ashok Chandna- Sports and youth affairs, policy planning

3) Bhanwar Singh Bhatti – Power (IC), Water Resources, IGNP

4) Rajendra Singh Yadav – Higher education, Planning (manpower), home and justice

5) Dr Subhash Garg – Technical education, Ayurveda and Indian medicines, minority affairs

6) Sukhram Bishnoi- Labour, revenue

7) Brijendra Ola – Transport and road safety

8) Muralilal Meena – Agriculture Marketing, tourism, civil aviation

9) Rajendra Singh Gudha – Home guard and civil DEFENCE

10) Zahinda Khan – Science and Technology, education

The ministry of social and Empowerment, government of India, has directed all the states and union territories, including Rajasthan, to ensure giving 4% reservation for persons with disabilities (PwDs) in Panchayati Raj and local body Elections.

Earlier, the State Government had allowed nominating PwDs to the Urban Local Bodies as members across the state. The state government had amended the Rajasthan Municipal Act in March this year to introduce this provision of nominating PwDs to the ULBs as members, making it the first in the country.

After amendments in the Rajasthan Municipal Act, now it has become mandatory to keep one post vacant for PwDs in an urban local body.

A new extinct species of hybodontshark has been discovered in the Jaisalmer Basin of Rajasthan by researchers from the Geological Survey of India and the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee by a team of officers. This discovery was published in the 4th issue of Historical Biology, an internationally renowned journal of palaeontology, in August 2021.

Key points

Thirty teeth specimens were collected from the region which proved that the species lived about 160 and 168 million years ago.

It was termed Strophodus jaisalmerensis, and it is the first time the Strophodus genus has been found in India.

Hybodont sharks were believed to have grown around 2-3 metres long. They went extinct 65 million years ago, most likely as a result of comparing with other species, such as sharks. It’s worth noting that dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago as well. But It’s unclear whether these two extinctions are related or not.

TheCentral Pollution Control Board(CPCB) on Sunday collected samples from the rain-fedLuniriver to keep tabs on the waterbodys pollution levels. The team collected water samples from a stretch of 22km.

The mandate for keeping a check on the pollution levels in a state river lies with the state. Luni is a state-specific river.

As part of the scheme, 100 grams of pulses, 100 grams of vegetables, 250 grams of chapati and pickles per plate will be provided to people in 358 Indira Rasois (kitchens) which have been set up in 213 across the state. The scheme targets to serve food to 1.34 lakh people per day in the state.

Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot approved a proposal of62.30 crore to provide financial assistance to around 6,000 research scholars in the state.

In addition, 3,800 research scholars of government colleges and universities will get financial assistance of up to25,000 for participation in internships, seminars, workshops, conferences in prestigious higher educational institutions and research institutes of the country.

Researchers of medical Education universities and those receiving any other kind of fellowship will not be eligible for this financial grant.

On the International Day for , the state forest department launched two safaris in Udaipur andJhunjhunudistricts, enhancing Rajasthan’s reputation as a wildlife destination for tourists.
While the focus of safari in Beed reserve in Jhunjhunu will be on blackbucks and chinkaras, the one launched in Jaisamand in Udaipur district will be a leopard safari, also the first outside Jaipur district.

The leopard safari in Jaisamand sanctuary was planned by the forest department’s following the successful operations of Jhalana andAmagarhleopard reserves. The safari is expected to increase tourism in the area, provide an additional attraction for visitors exploring the Jaisamand lake, the second-largest manmade lake in India.

The will look after children who have been orphaned during thepandemic, irrespective of the fact if their parents died due to Covid or some other ailment. Thehealth departmenthas issued an order to all districts in this regard. The nodal officers, including the medical staff at the district levels, will provide details of such children on the child helpline number 1098, following which thechild commissionwill prepare a list of minors to be handed over to the state government.

During the second wave of pandemic, with the death toll rising, many messages of child adoption started doing the rounds on Social Media. According to these messages minors whose parents have succumbed to Covid can be adopted. The registered orphanages said that till now they have not got any children whose parents died due to Covid. They added that in the coming days these calls might start pouring in.

Jaipurs 99% irrigated land of 2.80 lakh hectares uses groundwater for Irrigation while the remaining 1% uses surface water, leading to gross over-exploitation of groundwater (GW) reserves.

The Central Groundwater Board Report 2022 (November) says that of the districts 15 blocks, Govindgarh has the lions share with 40,000 hectares irrigated using groundwater. Blocks likeJhotwaraand Sanganer lead in using groundwater for industrial purposes.

The report says in 2021, the district recorded a deficit of 918 million cubic metres of groundwater, mainly due to over-exploitation for irrigation purposes.

The report points out that the imbalance in groundwater is gradually pushing the water table deeper. The analysis of the decadal water level trend (2011-2020) indicates that the overall trend in the district is decline at an Average rate of 0.50 metres per year.

In an important judgement, a larger bench of the Gujarat held that the State Government can levy stamp duty in the event of amalgamation or reconstruction of unlisted companies based on their market capitalization, and the premium paid for issuance of Shares cannot be treated as its face value.

A three-judge bench gave various references regarding computation of stamp duty under the Gujarat Stamp Duty Act. The questions were posed by the chief controlling revenue authority before the HC in 2020, when different companies including firms of Adani Group, Global Enterprise Ltd, Troikaa Pharmaceuticals Ltd felt that higher stamp duty was asked for mergers/amalgamation/reconstruction of their companies.

For calculation of stamp duty, the bench held that therevenue departmentwas right in charging duty on orders sanctioning schemes of amalgamation/reconstruction between unlisted companies based on market value of shares, which will be deemed to be its face value according to Explanation-III(c) in Article 20(d) of Schedule-I to the Gujarat Stamp Act, 1958. The amount of premium at which such shares of unlisted companies are issued under schemes cannot be treated as a separate consideration while computing stamp duty.