27.08.21

NER District SDG Index by NITI Aayog

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& Development of North Eastern Region Ministry (M/DoNER) released the first version of the North Eastern Region District SDG Index Report and Dashboard for this reason attaining the milestone towards localizing the Sustainable Development Goals.

Highlights:

The index is the first of its form in the country as it focuses on the North Eastern Region, which is of quintessential magnitude to the countrys improvement trajectory.

It measures the performance of districts of the 8 States of Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura on the Sustainable Development Goals and their corresponding pursuits and ranks the districts based on the same.

The index is based on SDG India Index of India the important and legit tool for monitoring progress on the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) at the countrywide and State/ Union Territory degrees and Shares the frequent ethos of benchmarking overall performance and ranking on the SDGs to foster competition among the districts.

It presents insights into the social, economic, and environmental status of the vicinity and its districts in their march in the direction of attaining the SDGs.

It is a special coverage tool which has the potential to measure district level progress, highlight quintessential gaps, facilitate resource allocation, and will be a handy tool for coverage makers in the eight North Eastern States, Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region & other Union Ministries.

Out of the 103 districts for ranking, sixty four districts belonged to the Front Runner category whilst 39 districts were in the Performer category in the composite rating and ranking of districts.

All districts in Sikkim & Tripura fall in the Front Runner class & there are no districts in the Achiever categories.

The East Sikkim with a score of 75.87 positioned 1st in the place followed by districts Gomati & North Tripura with a score 75.73] in the 2nd position.

In a major push under the Act East Policy, Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) signed an agreement with Hooghly Cochin Shipyard Ltd to build the first slipway or ship repairing facility on the banks of Brahmaputra river, thenationalwaterway-2, at Pandu here. The agreement was inked in presence of Union minister for ports, shipping and waterwaysSarbananda Sonowaland Asam chief ministerHimanta Biswa Sarma.

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With technical support from the IIT-Madras, the facility will be built at an estimated cost of Rs 75 crore over 3.67 acres of land provided by the Assam government at Pandu and is expected to be completed by August 2023.

Sharing nearly 4,500 kilometres of International Border with neighbouring countries such as Bangladesh, Bhutan, China and Myanmar, the region is strategically and economically crucial for being the gateway to the southeast Asian countries. Also, the regions connectivity with the other parts of the country by means of protracted modes of transport has become a thrust area for the government.

To include most of the hinterlands of the NE region, 20 waterways have been declared as national waterways, to provide access to Kolkata and Haldia .

Kendrapara district of Odisha, that is crisscrossed by rivers, creeks and water inlets, has become the only district in India where all three species of crocodiles viz., salt-water,gharialand mugger are found.

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District has also claimed fame for its successful conservation programme launched for salt-water or estuarine crocodiles at theBhitarkanika .

The national park comprises of 1,768 estuarine crocodiles and is Home to 70 per cent of Indias estuarine crocodiles.

Now, with the sighting of mugger and gharial crocodiles, all three species of crocodiles are found in the river systems of Kendrapara district.

Gharial hatchling was rescued from Paika river which is a tributary of Mahanadi on August 29, 2021.

In 2016, a 14-feet-long mugger was sighted.

This larger national park is located in the northeast Kendrapara district of Odisha. It obtained the status of a Ramsar site in 2002. The area the second Ramsar site of Odisha after the Chilika Lake. The Park is surrounded by Bhitarkanika Wildlife Sanctuary, Gahirmatha Beach, Marine Sanctuary, separating swamp region as well as MANGROVES from the Bay of Bengal. Park is home to Saltwater crocodile kingcobra, Indian python, black ibis, darters and other species of Flora and Fauna.

Separate Budget for Agriculture – Tamil Nadu

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The Nadu legislative assembly presented a separate budget for Agriculture-notes-for-state-psc-exams”>Agriculture for the first time in the HISTORY of the assembly. The budget was by the Tamil Nadu Minister for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare. MRK Panneerselvam on August 13, 2021.

Highlights:

Minister dedicated the price range to farmers who are protesting in New Delhi towards the three farm laws.

The finances were drafted after conducting discussions with farmers and representatives of farmers associations from 18 districts.

The authorities allotted Rs 34,220.65 crores for Agriculture and allied sectors consisting of Horticulture, Animal Husbandry, Revenue, Fisheries, Agricultural Engineering, Tamil Nadu Agriculture University, Rural Development and Panchayat Raj.

During the final budget, the government had allocated Rs 11,894.48 for these sectors.

Kalaignars Anaithu Grama Oruginaintha Velan Valarchi Thittam: Government has planned to put into effect this project in the span of the next 5 years to make certain all villages of Tamil Nadu could acquire ordinary development and self-sufficiency in agriculture.

Budget highlights, there are 12,524 village panchayats in Tamil Nadu and this scheme will be applied in one-fifth of the village panchayats every year.

This year, the scheme will be applied in 2,500 village panchayats in the year 2021.

The government has additionally determined to convert 11.75 lakh hectares of fallow lands into farmland in 10 years in order to amplify the vicinity of cultivation from 60 to 75 per cent.

The Double-cropped region will be elevated to 20 lakh hectares from one lakh hectares. The area will be expanded through setting up new water assets and developing micro-Irrigation clusters Rs 573.24 crores have been allotted to Tamil Nadu Agricultural University.

A separate wing for natural farming will additionally be created under the Agriculture Department. Farmers will be motivated via potential subsidies for adopting the Organic Farming methods.

Rural Youth Agricultural Skill development Mission: This mission will be launched to inspire educated childhood in order to take up agriculture to the subsequent level at their native places. 2500 adolescents will be trained in the first segment in areas of grafting, working horticulture, layering etc. Rs 5 crores have been allotted for this scheme.

TheKeralastate electricity boards (KSEB) efforts to steer itself clear of the mountinglosseshave been seriously hit with the second wave ofCovid-19pandemic. The revenue dues from various organizations that had dropped to Rs 1,388 crore by March 31, 2019, through an extensive drive, has shot up and reached Rs 2,936 crore by June 30 this year, marking an increase of Rs 1,548 crore in just two years.

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As per the details of finances of the KSEB accessed by STOI, during the period of pandemic alone, the dues had increased by Rs 1,049 crore. Of the total dues, Rs 739.44 crore is from the Kerala water authority (KWA) alone. The KWA is supposed to pay Rs 27 crore every month to the KSEB. Though the dues of KWA were even more, the earlier dues were cleared by the government by splitting it into four instalments and allocating those in the state budget.

When it comes to the revenue earnings of the KSEB, even though 76% of the total consumers are domestic consumers, only 37.51% of the income comes from this category. This is primarily because the majority of domestic consumers are within the category of 1 to 250 monthly slabs, in which the Average bills are much lesser than the average cost of power supply, the finances show.

The Kerala state electricity regulatory commission had revised the power tariff four times since 2013-14, and the last time the power tariff was increased was in July 2019.

The Cauvery water management authority on Tuesday deferred KarnatakasMekedatudam plan following strong objections from theTamil Nadugovernment. The authority also deferred the Tamil Nadu governments Cauvery-Gundar interlinking project following objections fromKarnatakarepresentatives.

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While the bureaucrats of Nadu and Karnataka took part in the meeting convened by CWMA chairman S K Haldar in New Delhi, the representatives ofPuducherryandKeralajoined through video-conference. Mekedatu was included in the agenda and we wanted to discuss that.

A new study, led by city-based Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics, has found a novel marker in Telangana population that could help in cracking crimes, settling paternity disputes and identification during disasters.

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Scientists fromCDFDand several forensic labs in the country have conducted a study on Population of five Indian states to find out the forensic relevance of certain genes. The study also reconfirmed earlier findings that the population of is much closer to the populace ofMadhya Pradesh.

The research paper, Assessment of Significance and Forensic Relevance of SE33 (ACTB) Locus in Five Indian Populations was published recently in Gene Reports journal.

The Probability of matching a profile with any other source is always unique and therefore can be used to establish the identity of the person.

SE33 is the potential marker for human identification, especially for solving paternity disputes and analysis of mixed samples.

TheTirumala TirupatiDevasthanams (TTD), the richest Hindu temples conglomerate in the world, has put into motion its long-term assets monetisation plan by deciding to lease out 191 kalyana mandapams acrossAndhra Pradeshand Telangana.

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There has been widespread criticism that the temple body, which has built 304 kalyana mandapams across the country, has not been in a position to properly maintain and monetise them.

This is the first time that the TTD is giving on lease such a large number of kalyana mandapams.

Gakuved, the federation oftribalcommunities in the state, has put forth several suggestions to the state government on improving internetconnectivityin villages as online education of the scheduled tribe (ST) students living inremoteparts of the state has been affected.It was also suggested that all such villages be connected with fibre optic internet service as village panchayats have been provided with the facility.

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The federation also requested the government to formulate a special scheme under the tribal sub-plan to provide android phones to ST students and that Wi-Fi towers be set up so that online Education is not hampered.

The power bill arrears ofMaharashtraState Electricity Distribution Company Limited (MSEDCL) across Mumbai metropolitan region has touched Rs 1,000 crore, sources said on Sunday.The power utility firm had temporarily disconnected supply for over 2 lakh consumers so far this year for non-payment of bills, most of them unpaid since June 2020.

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Of the total arrears, Bhandup zone which includesBhandup-Mulund,Thane and Vashi(Navi Mumbai) had arrears from residential consumers to the tune of Rs 137 crore.

At the same time, the Kalyan zone which includes Dombivli-Kalyan up to Karjat/ Kasara and Vasai-Virar, Palghar had pending electricity bill payments of over Rs 350 crore from residential consumers, sources said. This included Rs 183 crore in Kalyan-Dombivli and Rs 103 crore in Vasai-Virar belt.