Ngopa village in Mizoram receives the National Panchayat AwardFor the first time in Mizoram a village known as Ngopa village received The National Panchayat Award making history as the first community in the state to do so. As per the Union Ministry of Panchayati Raj’s announcement of the award Ngopa bagged the second position after Mullusoge from Karnataka in the Nanaji Deshmukh Sarvottam Panchayat Satat Vikar Puraskar (NDSPSVP) category.

The reduction of POVERTY, bettering livelihoods, maintaining cleanliness, promoting green initiatives, and excellent Governance are just a few of the nine categories for which Ngopa received recognition for great performance.


State Govt hikes minimum wages from Apr 1

With the beginning of the new financial year, the has revised minimum daily wages of unskilled, semi skilled, skilled and highly-skilled labourers.

According to an official notification issued by the State Labour Commissioner Dr N Thirumala Naik, the daily wages of the labourers have been increased by hiking their Variable Dearness Allowance (VDA) by Rs 12.

With the hike in VDA, the minimum daily wages for unskilled, semi skilled, skilled, and highly skilled workers have been increased to Rs 345, Rs 385, Rs 435 and Rs 495, respectively, with effect from April 1, 2023.

The State Government has been revising the daily wages as per the advice of State Minimum Wages Advisory Board, which had asked the State to adopt a system of revision of the special allowance called VDA @ 0.90 per point rise in the Consumer Price Index Number for industrial workers (base 2001-100) as admissible and shall be declared at half yearly interval (April 1 and October 1) from the date of notification of revised wages, starting from April 1, 2019.

Tamil Nadu govt notifies anti-online gambling law

Nadu government notified the Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Online Gambling and Regulation of Online Games Act, 2022, which was given assent by Tamil Nadu governor R N Ravi on April 7.

Chief ministerM K Stalinon Monday told the assembly that the governor had given assent to theBill. “It will be gazetted today itself,” the CM said. Even as the assent was dated April 7, the Raj Bhavan informed the State Government only on April 10 (Monday), the day when the legislature passed a resolution moved by the chief minister, urging PresidentDroupadi Murmuand the Union Government to prescribe a specific time limit for the governor to give assent to bills passed by the assembly.

The state government enacted the legislation as several people died by suicide over the loss of Money in online games. The Madras High Court had earlier struck down the Tamil Nadu Gaming and Police Laws (Amendment) Act, 2021, which banned wagering or betting in cyberspace, as it ultra vires the Constitution.

Kerala govt to acquire 15 acres of Fertilizers and Chemicals Travancore land

Industries ministerP Rajeevehas said the would acquire 15 acres owned byFertilizers and Chemicals Travancore(FACT) at Eloor and hand it over to Cochin University of Science and Technology (Cusat) for setting up a Science Park. The minister along with Cusat vice-chancellor visited the site on Tuesday and held discussions withFACTofficials on acquiring thelandidentified for the purpose.

The state government has already sent a request to FACT expressing willingness to acquire the land. The FACT will convene a board meeting to discuss it. Once the approval is given at the board meeting, it will be sent for the Union governments nod.

IISc Bangalore device can help power streetlights

Researchers at the department of instrumentation and applied physics (IAP), Indian Institute of Science (IISc), have designed a novel ultra-micro supercapacitor – a tiny device capable of storing an enormous amount of electric charge.

According to the institute, the new device is much smaller and more compact than existing supercapacitors and can potentially be used in many appliances ranging from streetlights to consumer electronics, electric cars and medical apparatus. “Most of these devices are currently powered by batteries. However, over time, these batteries lose their ability to store charge and therefore have a limited shelf life. Capacitors, on the other hand, can store electric charge for much longer, by virtue of their design.

In the current study, published in ACS Energy Letters, researchers fabricated their supercapacitor using field-effect transistors (FETs) as the charge collectors, instead of the metallic electrodes used in existing capacitors.

Telangana AI Mission startups to get access to NSM AI computing infrastructure

TheTelanganaAI Mission (T-AIM), a joint government andNASSCOMinitiative, on Tuesday said it has facilitated twoMoUsbetween Telangana government and theCentre for Development of Advanced Computing(C-DAC) andIndian Institute of Technology Hyderabad(IIT-H).

The MoUs will provide the 142 AI startups being supported by T-AIM through its accelerator programme called Revv Up with affordable access to high performance AI computing (HPAIC) through the public Infrastructure set up under the National Supercomputing Mission (NSM).
The MoU was signed with C-DAC will allows Revv Up startups to access India’s largest and fastest AI scalable supercomputing infrastructure with 410 AI Petaflops at no cost for a certain period in a benefit that translates to Rs 10 crores in economic value created for T-AIM startups. After that, startups can continue to utilise facilities at rates that are a third lower than those offered by private cloud infrastructure providers.

The MoU signed with IIT-H will offer PARAM SEVA computing infrastructure of 833 teraflops, which was also built by C-DAC under the aegis of NSM, at discounted rates for Revv Up startups.

No proposal from AP for Vizag metro rail project, clarifies Union minister

Union minister of housing and urban affairs, Hardeep Puri, has stated that there is no pending proposal from AP government for sanction of Visakhapatnam metro rail project. The Union ministers written reply, to a starred question by GVLNarasimha Rao,Rajya Sabhamember from BJP, read that the Central government had requested AP to resubmit a proposal as per the revised Metro Rail Policy, 2017.

The government has not submitted any proposal in this regard, the minister said, adding that in 2018, AP had informed that they intended to build a Light rail project under public private PARTNERSHIP mode and requested the Centres support for external financial assistance from Korea (Korean Exim Bank). However, the Korean bank was unable to fund the project. The AP government was informed about the Korean banks refusal in April 2019 and was asked if the metro project proposal may be proposed for loan assistance to other bilateral or multilateral agencies.

Industrialists bemoan infrastructure gaps lingering for 10 years

For over 10 years, efforts to provide industrial have remained at a standstill, much to the frustration of local entrepreneurs and manufacturing units. The Rs 10 crore budgetary allocation made for Goa Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC) is insufficient to address the requirements of the industrial estates atVerna,Kundaim, Pilerne, Madkai, Colvale and other places.

Goa’s industrialists want the government to allocate higher funding, particularly if power, raw water, roads and other amenities need to be put in place at Latambarcem, Shiroda, Panchawadi, and Sanguem industrial estates.

According to the government’s own admission, industrial plots cannot be allotted at Latambarcem as roads and power infra are not available.

Goa Investment Promotion Board approved four investment proposals in Latambarcem Industrial Estate while GIDC allotted a 50,000 sqm plot to Unichem Laboratories in April 2021.

Water scheme for Manjari to be operational soon; trials on

The water supply scheme for theManjariarea may be launched soon with its final stage trials already underway.

The scheme was sanctioned in 2012-13 at a cost of Rs 44 crore. But, its work had been on slow track since then. MLA Chetan Tupe said the pending works were pushed in the last two years and the scheme is getting ready now to provide water to the most populated parts of Manjari like Mahadevnagar, Gokulpatti and Gaothan.

TheMaharashtra Jeevan Pradhikaran(MJP) is implementing the scheme. Residents said the project got a push after Manjari was merged into Pune municipal limits in 2021. The Population of Manjari has gone up significantly in the last decade, pushing up water demand.