Chief ministerN Biren Singh flagged off a consignment of 1 MT of organicChak-Hao(black rice) to Europe at a simple function.

He also flagged off vehicles carrying quality seeds for distribution to villagers of different districts of the state affected by destruction of poppy plantations due to the governments War on Drugs campaign.

The seeds are being provided to villagers under the Alternative Seed Distribution Scheme of Manipur and Soil conservation (HSC) department.

Assamhas promulgated a tenancyActto establish a rent authority to regulate renting of premises, which will be market-driven and determined by a mutual agreement between tenants and landlords in order to protect the interests of both.

Officials here said Assam is the first state in the country to do so. The new law has been formulated on the basis ofa Model Tenancy Actwhich was approved by theUnion Cabineton June 2 this year for adoption across all states andUnion Territories.

The bill was introduced in the assembly on August 9 and was passed. The earlierAssam Urban Areas Rent Control Act, 1972, stands repealed.

The Act will provide a speedy adjudication mechanism for resolution of disputes between landlords and tenants through the establishment of a rent authority, a rent court and rent appellate at the district level.
The Act also specifies the duties and obligations of landlords and tenants regarding maintenance and upkeep of premises.

Change in Elephant Landscape Range – WSO

According to the WSO (Wildlife Society of Orissa), the elephant landscape in Odisha has gone through a dramatic change because of mindless mining & unplanned developmental activities.

Key Points:

According to WSO, the elephant panorama has changed dramatically in the final two decades.

In the Keonjhar district of Odisha, there had been 112 elephants in 2002. Now, it has only forty elephants due to large-scale mining.

In the last 20 days of July-August, five elephants had been deemed useless in the Keonjhar forest division.

Dhenkanal district had eighty-one elephants in 2002 which has multiplied to 169. Number of elephants are getting trapped in the Rengali Irrigation canals.

On similar lines, 70 elephants from the Chandaka sanctuary have abandoned the location and have migrated to Nayagarh, Ganjam and Cuttack districts. Many of them have been killed by means of trains or due to electrocution in Ganjam.

Century Year of Madras Legislative Council

The President of India graced the commemoration of the 100th year of the Nadu Assembly on August 1, India Act 1919.

The term was 3 years. It consisted of 132 members, out of which 34 were nominated by the states governor, the rest were elected. It met for the 1st time on January 9, 1921, at Fort St. George of Madras.

The legislative Council was inaugurated by the Duke of Cannaught, a paternal uncle of the England King, on January 12, 1921, on the request made by Governor Wellington.

The Second and Third Councils were constituted after the general Elections held in 1923 and 1926, respectively.

The fourth Legislative Council met in November 1930 after the general elections of that year, and its term was extended from time to time, and it lasted till the provincial autonomy under the Government of India Act, 1935 that came into operation.

Kerala State Electricity Board(KSEB) has decided to explore the possibility of converting the almost-defunctdiesel power plantsBrahmapuram and Kozhikode toLNGstations or the like using the existing infrastructure facilities.

KDPP, a thermal power plant with an installed capacity of 128MW, operates in 26.8acre at Nallalam inKozhikodedistrict. The 106.6MWBrahmapuramdiesel power plant is situated in Kunnathunadu taluk in Kochi in an area of 96.33acre and it consists of five generating units of 21.32MW each.

KDPP project started its commercial operation in 1999. It has generated 4,629MU of power so far. A fuel supply agreement was executed with Bpcl on January 30, 1999 that expired in 2016. Also two diesel Generator sets were decommissioned in 2014. The last commercial operation at the plant was done during December 2020 to February 2021. Presently, a bare minimum stock of fuel is only available at KDPP as the production of LSHS has been completely stopped by the oil refineries in Kerala.

With more than 83,000 hectares of its forest land under encroachment, Karnataka has the third highest illegal occupancy of forests in India, behind only Madhya Pradesh and Assam, notwithstanding efforts by consecutive governments.

According to data from theministry of Environment, forestsand https://exam.pscnotes.com/Climate-change”>Climate Change, more than 13.3 lakh hectares of forests are under encroachment across the country.

Of this, Karnataka alone has 83,092.3 hectares, which, according to local authorities, includes families occupying forests without permission. Heres some perspective: The extent of forest area under encroachment is more than the size of Bengaluru the city has a land area of about 74,000 hectares and more than four times the size ofMysuru.

In Karnataka, the issue of forest encroachment has for long been both a critical and sensitive one. While there are encroachments for commercial activity, the other, more sensitive type of encroachment, has been by families living in areas they shouldnt.

As per Union ministry data, of 13.3 lakh hectares, more than 40% of the encroachment is in Madhya Pradesh, followed by Assam, which accounts for 27% of the encroached land. Although Karnatakas share is much less around 6% compared to these two states, it occupies the third place, followed byMaharashtraand Arunachal Pradesh.

Children having access to digital devices are more in number in the states ofTelanganaand Kerala. While 1,17,570 children in the state do not have access to digital devices, the number stands at 95,283 in Kerala. Having digital access has assumed a lot of significance in pandemic times as schools and colleges were forced to shift to the online mode of teaching.Surprisingly, IT hub Karnataka is third from the bottom according to the data released by theCentrefrom a survey conducted in the states on children without access to digital devices.

In Karnataka, 31,31,098 children do not have access to digital devices, while Bihar has the highest number of children (1,43,36,007) without access to digital devices.
The survey in West Bengal is still underway and countrys largest state Uttar Pradesh, does not have any data.

On the flip side, has a concern as the dropout rate in the upper primary level (9-10th classes) among the boys is high, at 14 % in 2019-20. However, only 10% of girls dropped out of school the same year.

Thetobaccoboard has fixedcropsize forAndhra Pradeshat 130 million kg for the 2021-22 crop season. The decision was taken at the special board meeting held in virtual mode on Monday. The reasonably decent prices offered by traders for the stock during the current auctionseasonseem to have prompted the board to increase the crop size for the next season, which is nearly 15 million kg increase over last years crop size of 115 million kg.

The board had trimmed the crop size for bothAPand Karnataka for 2020-21 crop season following the outbreak of Covid-19. But with entire stock produced by growers consumed by the trade in the last two years, the board has decided to revive the crop size in both states.

The Goa philatelic museum is set to be inaugurated this year in the erstwhile premises of the department of posts inPanaji, a centuries-old heritagebuildingthat overlooks the Latin quarter on one side and river Mandovi on the other.This will be thesecondmuseum in India dedicated exclusively to philatelic material, after the National Philatelic Museum at New Delhi.

A total of 75 frames will be permanently displayed at the museum with each frame capable of accommodating 16 A4-sized displays.
Thephilatelymuseum will have three sections: Goan art, culture and heritage, Indian panorama and international philately. An audiovisual room and workshop room will offer a wide range of interactive sessions and curate exhibits. A separate research room and philatelic library is also being set up for philatelists and researchers to refer books for study.

Goa post intends to set up a coordination team along with the philatelic bureaus across India and invite various school students and senior citizens to visit Goa and engage in symposia.
In the near future, Goa post also intends to set up a team of restoration experts who will work on the restoration of old products of philatelic significance.

District guardian minister Chhagan Bhujbal announced his plans for makingNashika medical tourism hub, where people from across the state, country, and even the world will come.

Bhujbal pointed out that the Maharashtra University of Health Sciences (MUHS) was coming up with the medical college and hospital on its own campus and subsequently, there will be postgraduate and medical research facilities.

Bhujbal also launched the e-crop registry programme for the farmers, wherein they can register their crop and their status by themselves.