Current Affairs Exam

Uttarakhand: Artificial water sources quenching the thirst of wildlife in forest of Rajaji Tiger Reserve

June 14, 2024 by rawan239

Erratic weather patterns have been hitting the natural sources of water in forests for years now, forcing wild animals to move out of their natural habitats in search of water. This would often lead to human-animal conflict incidents inUttarakhand.

To address this issue, the state forest department, sometime ago, started a massive drive to arrange artificial water sources for wild animals in the reserved and protected forest areas, includingRajaji Tiger Reserveand Haridwar forest divisions where the cases of human-animal conflict deaths were going up.

This year, the Rajaji Tiger Reserve has recorded just one human-wildlife conflict incident whereas no such case surfaced in the Haridwar forest divisions.

Notably, Uttarakhand is Home to 2,026 elephants, according to an estimation done by the forest department in 2020. A majority of these jumbos are found in the Shivalik Elephant Reserve, which is spread across more than a dozen forest divisions and protected wildlife areas of Uttarakhand.

Uttar Pradesh: Smart solar shops to empower self-help groups

June 14, 2024 by rawan239

The UP government said that it has rolled out the Prerna Ojas project of the state rural livelihoods mission under which Women self-help groups (SHGs) are enabled to makesolar lampsfor children.

The opportunity will lead to economic and Empowerment“>Social Empowerment of rural women folk through Smart Solar Shops and also help in providing solar power for the benefit of children in remote areas.

Earlier, the had distributed over 28 lakh solar lamps made by 4,000 women to school children in 75 blocks of over 30 districts in the state. The initiative is helping children in a great way in pursuing Education, besides making women self-reliant. The women, according to the state government, have been earning a fair amount of Money ranging from Rs 8,000-Rs 10,000 per month.

Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) has come to a great help to provide employment opportunities to the rural population of Jharkhand at a time when the economy of the country has been badly affected by Covid-19.

June 14, 2024 by rawan239

The ground assessment has confirmed that during the lockdown when Jharkhand witnessed a mass reverse Migration, the job loss on national level; MGNREGA proved crucial to financially sustain the poor rural Population.

So far in fiscal year 2021-2022 corresponding with the second and lethal wave of Covid 19, the Jharkhand government has provided job cards to 33,000 families that will benefit 51,000 people. So far 228 lakh man-days have been created with 13.80 lakh people getting EMPLOYMENT out of different MGNREGA schemes. To locally generate employment opportunities for job seekers under MGNREGA scheme District Administration and rural development department have been asked to start at least five to six construction works at each village.

The has further directed that rural works can be selected under different schemes like Nilambar-Pitambar Jal Samridhi Yojana, Birsa Harti Gram Yojana, Veer Poto Ho Khel Yojana, Didi Badi Yojana and others. Schemes related to water conservation and forestations too have been added under MGNREGA.

So far, 47,242 schemes have been completed and the work is under progress in 9.42 lakh schemes.

Notably, 81 per cent of the total allotted budget has been spent on schemes related to natural resource conservation.

Currently, Agriculture-notes-for-state-psc-exams”>Agriculture related schemes constitute 94.33 per cent of the total schemes approved under MGNREGA.

In fact the Jharkhand Government realised that during tough times like this MGNREGA can be the life saver if schemes are properly managed. In the previous fiscal year over 14 lakh new job cards were issued when there was a nationwide lockdown. Similarly, 11 crore man-days were created under MGNREGA. The result remained satisfactory as almost all households got jobs for a minimum of 46 days whereas 3.56 per cent of the total households got full 100 days jobs.

Bihar, Jharkhand among countrys lightning hotspots

June 14, 2024 by rawan239

An idiom which was perhaps coined in 18th century to denote surprise, has come to stay as a grim reminder of vagaries of nature as lightning strike has become a lurking threat to outdoor activities, particularly for the farming community in the country.

Lightning is the most impressive, commonly experienced geophysical phenomenon, producing the brightest Light and the loudest Sound commonly occurring on the Earth. There are approximately 30 to 100 cloud and cloud-to-ground lightning discharges per second worldwide; that translates roughly to 9 million discharges per day worldwide.

Globally, 85% to 90% of lightning occurs over land because solar radiation heats land faster, causing convection (thunderstorms) to be taller and stronger. This makes entire India venerable to lightning strike, but considering the fact that lightning is essentially a product of thunderstorm, so central and eastern parts of the country, includingBihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal and adjoining areas of Bangladesh are the thunderstorm orlightning hotspots.

With an elaborate Network of ground and space-based observations, meteorological agencies are able to identify the areas of potential formation of such thunderstorm. For a wider outreach, these Services have been made available free of cost through mobile apps like DAMINI of ministry of earth sciences and INDRA VAJRA of Bihar government.

Nearly 50% villages in Chhattisgarh are now Corona-free

June 14, 2024 by rawan239

The has declared over 9400 Covid-free after no case was reported there for five days in a row. “Out of 20,092 villages, 9,462 have becomeCovidfree. Campaign for containment for Covid infection in rural areas is yielding positive results.

New virology labs andRT-PCRinvestigation facility has been inaugurated in at the medical colleges at Mahasamund, Kanker andKorbaas well as Koriya District’s headquarters Baikunthpur. Increasing the testing labs capacity to 11 inChhattisgarh, because of this the daily sample testing capacity has increased from 22,000 to 70,000 per day. Health Infrastructure from district hospitals to primary health centers has been ramped up. Hospital beds were increased in the hospitals, treatment facilities were expanded to villages through new COVID care centers. Ambulances have been facilitated for taking the critical patients from rural areas to hospitals nearby.

As per the announcement of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, the State Government has implemented Mukhya Mantri Covid-19 Anukampa Niyukti Yojana for all the regular/permanent workers/work-charged and contingent-paid/daily salaried/ad-hoc/contract/collector rate/outsourced/honorarium government employees/servants employed by it.

June 14, 2024 by rawan239

All regular/permanent workers/work-charged and contingent-paid/daily wage earners/ad-hoc/contract/personnel of the state working on collector rate whose salary/honorarium/remuneration is payable from the States Consolidated Fund. Employees working on outsourced Services taken by the departments under the sanction and prescribed procedure, whose remuneration/honorarium etc. are payable from the State’s Consolidated Fund.

Gujarat: Survey begins to assess the impact of Cyclone Tauktae in devastated areas

June 14, 2024 by rawan239

TheGujaratgovernment initiated a comprehensivesurveyto assess the impact of cycloneTauktaeand subsequent loss to life and property, including damage to crops, in the affected districts.

A comprehensive survey to assess the cyclone’s impact and subsequent loss to life and property has been initiated in Bhavnagar district.

The had shifted around 2.5 lakh persons to safer places and approved a daily cash dole of Rs 100 for each adult and Rs 60 for each child (who were shifted), for a period of seven days.

Rajasthan to scale up oxygen generation to 800MT daily

June 14, 2024 by rawan239

The Health department on Saturday said availability of Oxygen for medical use will be increased in government and private hospitals by setting up oxygen generation Plants and installing oxygen concentrators, which can extract 750MT to 800 MT oxygen from the air daily.

The need for oxygen during Covid had gone up to 800MT daily. Over the past one year, the increased the number of oxygen-supported beds, which pushed up the requirement of oxygen. The number of O2 beds have also been increased from 6,949 to 18,540 in a year.

The health department is targeting to ensure that even the community health centres in rural areas will have facilities of oxygen for patients and for the purpose, the health department is installing oxygen concentrators in community health centres so that patients get immediate oxygen when they need it.

New species added to bird list of India from Arunachal

June 14, 2024 by rawan239

A team of scientists from Bombay Natural HISTORY Society (BNHS), Mumbai, while exploring the high-altitude coniferous forests ofArunachal Pradesh, has recorded a rarespeciesofbirdwhich has been identified as the Three-banded Rosefinch after detailed observations.

This species is a resident of Southern China and vagrant in Bhutan. Thus, this is the first confirmed report of Three-banded Rosefinch from Arunachal Pradesh, a new addition to the list of birds from India.

Since 2016, the bird checklist of India has increased by 104 new species which were not reported previously. In 2021, five new species including Three-banded Rosefinch have been added. In 2020, there were three new additions to the checklist

In a first for Assam, lone woman in new cabinet gets finance

June 14, 2024 by rawan239

Chief ministerHimanta Biswa Sarma allocated the finance portfolio to the lone woman member of his cabinetAjanta Neog, making her the first female finance minister of the state. In the last NDA government, Sarma had held this portfolio.
Sarma kept the departments of Home, personnel and public works and any other departments not allotted to any minister with him. Neog will hold the additional responsibility of the social welfare department.

Representative from the Barak Valley, Parimal Shuklabaidya, has been given Environment & forests, and excise departments. He was in-charge of these departments in the last government too.