Bill passed, 8 new varsities to be established in Karnataka

With the Karnataka State Universities (Amendment) Bill-2022 being passed in the legislative assembly on Wednesday, eight new universities will spring up, taking the total number of varsities in the state (including 25 private and 11 deemed-to-be ones) to a staggering 69.

New universities will be

established at Bidar, Haveri, Kodagu, Chamarajanagar, Hassan, Koppal, and Bagalkot, while the unitary degree college in Mandya will be upgraded into a varsity.

The state will initially spend Rs 14 crore to set these universities and will earmark Rs 2 crore a year for each university later. Narayan insisted that a university in each district is in consonance with the National Educational Policy.

Bathukamma is being celebrated in Telangana from September 25 to October 3 this year.

is observed as the state festival of Telangana since the states inception in 2014.

It is a flower festival celebrated mainly in Telangana and several parts of Andhra Pradesh.

Bathukamma means Goddess of Life. It is a collection of flowers stacked one layer at a time and rising in a series of concentric circles like the gopuram in South Indian temples.

It is made using locally grown flowers like Gunugu puvvu (Celosia), Thangedu puvvulu (Cassia auriculata), Gummadi puvvulu (Cucurbita), Vaama puvvulu (Ajwain), Banthi puvvu (Marigold), Chamanthi puvvulu (Chrysanthemum) etc.

Andhra Pradesh maps classes III to V to 5,ooo high schools

TheAndhra Pradeshschool Education department (SCE) has so far mapped students of class III, IV and V to 5,372 high schools or pre-high schools (upper primary schools) within one-kilometre radius.

The SCE has taken up this exercise based on the national education policy-2020. The schools have been recategorized into six different categories.

The classes 3,4 and 5 mapped from the nearest primary schools along with the existing classes 6 to 10 will now function as a high school. Meanwhile, 10,000Anganwadischools have been shifted into the

premises of the nearby primary schools to convert them as foundational schools.

In this process, the department has received objections pertaining to 257 schools in the state. The exercise of mapping the three primary classes to high schools started on a trial basis in the last academic year itself. But the maximum radius was limited to 250 metres in 2021.

GoaMiles wins state national tourism award

Goa tourismhas bagged four national Awards in various categories. Tourism ministerRohan Khaunteand director of tourism Nikhil Desai received the

awards from Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar at a ceremony held in the national capital to celebrate World Tourism Day.
Goa tourism won awards for being the best civic management of a tourist destination in India – Calangute village, category C – and national tourism hall of fame, category union territory: comprehensive development of tourism.
The third award is for “the most innovative use of information technology – Social Media/mobile app website award for developing and successfully operating fully indigenous mobile taxi app GoaMiles in the true spirit of Atmanirbhar Bharat”.

Mumbai cops bag award for use of fingerprint technology in probe

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.

Haryana set to double power supply from renewable sources by 2024

With growing shortage of conventional electricity and prolonged outages, theHaryanagovernment aims to increase thepower supplyfrom renewable sources by nearly two-fold in the next two years, from the existing 2207 MW to 4264 MW. The power department is expected

to add an additional capacity of 1176 MW in 2022-23 and another 881 MW in 2023-24.

Despite taking several initiatives for the promotion of in the state, the pandemic put a break on the efforts of theHaryana Power Purchase Centre it faced constraints in meeting renewable power purchase obligation (RPO) targets.

Haryana was among the first few states to recognise the importance of green power and the need to decarbonise the state and also the fiscal constraints of discoms.

65% of state health expenditure comes out of Punjabis’ personal pockets

Little help from the governments – both state and the Centre – is resulting in high out-of-pocketexpenditureon healthcare for residents ofPunjaband Haryana.
The situation is worse in Punjab where the out-of-pocket-expenditures, which refers to spent directly by households for receiving healthcare, is higher than the national Average. At the same time, the governmenthealthexpenditure (GHE), which constitutes spending under all schemes funded and managed by the Centre, state, and local governments, was lower than the All-India average.
These facts have come to the fore in the latest report of theNational Health Accounts Estimatesfor India 2018-19. The out-of-pocket expenditure in Punjab was 65.5%, which accounted for 1.8% of the gross domestic state product (GSDP), against

the national average of 48.2%.

The report states that in Punjab, the total health expenditure was Rs 14,047 crore, which was 2.7% of the GSDP with per capita spending of Rs 4,682. Out of Rs 14,047 crore, out-of-pocket-expenditure was Rs 9,196 crore. In the previous year, the per capita expenditure was Rs 1,086, which was 25.7% of the total health expenditure, while the out-of-pocket expenditure was Rs 2,935 accounting for 69.4% of the total expenditure.

In Haryana, total health expenditure was Rs 13,463 crore, 1.9% of the GSDP, of which Rs 6,359 crore – 47.23% of total expenditure – was spent by people from their own pocket.

World Bank funding for HP power sector

The Central government will provide a financing facility worth about Rs 1,600 Crore throughfor Himachal Pradesh Power Sector Development Programme. With the state Equity, the total programme cost will be approximately Rs 2,000 crore. This programme aims to undertake holistic power sector reforms to allow for improvements in RENEWABLE ENERGY integration in the state.

The key result areas through which this is being targeted is improvements in utilization of states power sector Resources (such as hydro and solar), improvements in reliability of states grid at transmission and distribution level and strengthening of institutional capacities of various states power utilities/agencies.

Through this programme, efforts will be made towards promotion of integrated resource planning to

allow comprehensive planning of the power sector, piloting demand response management, improving the technical utilization of the existing Hydro Power assets to facilitate increased integration with other sources of renewable energy.

Ukhand to focus on increasing production of goat milk products in 5 identified valleys

Covid-19 has triggered the need for goat products — be it goat milk, cheese or curd — as per the state’s animal husbandry officials. To capitalise on this opportunity, the state has decided to convert its Someshwar in Almora, Pinder valley of Chamoli, Garud valley of Bageshwar, Agustmuni belt of Rudraprayag and Thalisen belt of Pauri

into “goat valleys”. The aim is to have homestays and -related works in these valleys with a tourist-like experience that would bring people closer to the serenity of rural villages of Himalayas.

These middle Himalayan valleys are perfect houses for the goats to survive. To augment the livelihood of farmers and retain the natural landscape of these valleys, the project is being conducted which will be gradually expanded in other valleys, too.

The state has its own Uttarkhand Sheep Goat Farmer Cooperative Federation under which around 11,000 farmers are registered, availing the benefits of various state and central government-run schemes.

Uttar Pradesh begins online verification of birth, death certificates

In a first, online verification of birth and death certificates is being carried out in the state to help beneficiaries avail the benefits of government schemes, reportsIsha Jain. The initiative taken by director,Census Operations(DCO),Uttar Pradesh, Sheetal Verma is aimed at ensuring prompt service delivery to beneficiaries

through IT-enabled facilities for automated verification of birth and death certificates with minimum human interference.

The swift execution became possible with the first-of-its-kind online verification of birth and death certificates being carried out in the state to help beneficiaries avail the benefits of government schemes.