30.11.21

Worlds Tallest Pier Bridge in Manipur

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The Indian Railways is creating the highest pier RAILWAY bridge in the world in Manipur.

Highlights:

The grand scheme of the Railways in Manipur is part of the Jiribam-Imphal railway line.

This will ultimately be part of a new broad gauge line being constructed to connect the northeastern state with the rest of the country.

The tallest pier bridge account is currently owned by a 139-metre high Mala-Rijeka viaduct built at Montenegro in Europe.

The bridge is being constructed at a height of 141 metres. The total length of the Manipur bridge will be 703 metres.

Once finished, the project will allow passengers to cover 111 km of distance in 2-2.5 hrs.

IIT-G, Aus institutes tie up on water management

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The Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati (IIT-G) is collaborating with the Australia India Water Centre and the Western Sydney University to support water management reforms in India.

With the aim to provide a structured platform for capacity building with strategic and long-term to support water management reforms in India, the ‘India Young Water Professional Programme’ has been launched.

The objective of the programme will be to equip water professionals with necessary skills, knowledge, behaviours and networks that will better enable them to contribute to the development and management of Resources“>Water Resources in India and address the competency needs and priorities of the water sector.

Bhubaneswar ranks last in quality education in SDG Urban Index

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The city has been ranked bottom in quality Education in the Goals Urban Index 2020-21 recently released by the NITI Aayog contrary to its increasing popularity as an education hub.

The Odisha capital has scored 50 out of 100 in quality education while Thiruvananthapuram tops the list with 96 points. The survey was conducted for Percentage of school Internet, schools with computer available, schools with functional electricity and drinking water, pupil-teacher ratio and percentage of trained teachers at secondary level in schools in 56 cities.

The survey revealed only 25.10% schools in the state capital have internet facilities while 57% have computers. Among the cities that have failed in providing internet Services to schools, Agra tops the list followed by Kolkata and Bhubaneswar.

Among the top three cities in quality education are Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi and Chandigarh with 96, 93 and 88 marks out of 100 while the bottom three cities are Agra, Bhopal, and Bhubaneswar with 54, 54 and 50 marks.

Odisha on the other hand has improved its ranking in quality education from 40 marks in 2019 to 45 in 2020. It is ranked 21 among the states in quality education in the index.

Tamil Nadu: CCTVs to monitor jaggery manufacture

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As demand forjaggeryspikes with the arrival of winter, the state food safety department has askedmanufacturersto installCCTV camerasin their units to checkadulteration.

A state-level monitoring committee held meetings with the stakeholders earlier this year. All manufacturers, particularly small-scale units located near agricultural fields, have been instructed to installCCTVcameras covering all operations from arrival of raw material to dispatch of final products. They have been told to submit the footage to food safety officers during inspection.

Jaggery sales usually increase during this time of the year for two reasons. First, it is used more to prepare traditional winter foods.

Seven months on, govt yet to act on committee report

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Almost seven months after a committee appointed by thegovernmentsubmitted its report on theparticipatory pension scheme(national pension scheme,NPS) implemented for the employees, the government has not taken any decision on it, while keeping the report under wraps without revealing the committees recommendations.

After the committee submitted its report to the government on April 30 this year, the report reached additional chief secretary (finance)Rajesh Kumar Singhwho examined and forwarded it to finance minister K N Balagopal on July 20 this year, as is clear from the electronic file records of the government. The file is now resting on the table of the finance minister.

It is reliably learnt that the government is going slow on the report as the committee has recommended that the scheme can be continued, which is against the LDFs pre-election assurance in 2016 that the scheme will be withdrawn if theLDFgovernment comes to power.

Karnataka received 249% excess rain in November

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In an all-time record,Karnatakareceived 249% excess rainfall in November, which caused flash floods and widespread damage to crops and .

Bengaluru recorded 224mm rainfall in November 329% above normal. In the past 100 years, only twice before has the city had more rain than this in November the first in 1916 and again in 2015.

October and November remained extraordinarily wet months throughout Karnataka, with the state recording 35% and 249% excess rainfall respectively. Coastal Karnataka, Malnad and south interior Karnataka received the highest rainfall, while north interior Karnataka registered normal rain.

At 7,000 crore, Telangana registration income higher than pre-Covid collection

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The enhanced land rates four months ago seem to have made no dent in the revenues as the registration department’s coffers continue to swell. In the past eight months alone, the government has netted Rs 7,000 crore, which is twice the revenue earned during pre-Covid time and more than three times during the 2020-21 financial year.

Of the 12 lakh documents registered by the registration and stamps (R&S) department, over three lakh pertain to Agriculture-notes-for-state-psc-exams”>Agriculture properties that were registered through Dharani web land portal. Among the districts, Rangareddy, Medchal-Malkajgiri, Hyderabad, Sangareddy and Yadadri Bhuvanagiri contributed the lion’s share (60%) of the revenue.

The official said of the eight months in the current financial year (2021-2022), the department earned over Rs 1,000 crore in just a month.

Andhra Pradesh: Smart cities up against unplanned urban growth

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Increasing Migration to towns and cities in the state is turning out to be one of the governments biggest challenges as it is adding to the already high Population in urban slums.Andhra Pradeshhas the highest number of urbanslumsin the country after Maharashtra.

According to a recent study report byNiti Aayog, about 16 per cent of the urban population in the state lives in slums, close on the heels of Maharashtras 18 per cent.

Interestingly, AP created the highest number of urban civic bodies in an attempt to draw more funds from the Centre for improvement of . However, the creation of new urban civic bodies without proper planning has led to an expansion of urban slums, said experts.

Unplannedurbanisationin the state has already resulted in a number of problems. AP has about 17 municipal corporations, nearly 80 municipalities and 30 nagar panchayats. But full-time planning officers with required qualifications are available only in a few cities. Officials such as town planning supervisors and building inspectors often have little knowledge of the processes of town planning.

The State Government had appointed a large number of planning secretaries in ward secretariats across the state two years ago. Although, a good number of engineering graduates have entered the field, they are from the civil engineering stream and not graduates from planning schools.

NABARD sets moderated Rs 6k cr lending target for priority sectors for 2022-23

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Goaslendingpotential through priority sectors such asfarm credit,manufacturingandhousinghas been pegged at Rs 6,750 crore for the year 2022-23. Prepared by National Bank for Agriculture-notes-for-state-psc-exams”>Agriculture and Rural Development (), the state focus paper has projected that Goas Micro, Small and Medium enterprises (MSME) will requireloansto the tune of Rs 4,479 crore in the coming financial year, which is 66% of the loan projection.

NABARD officials said that the projections for 2022-23 have been moderated in order to project realistic targets for banks and in view of the economic slowdown caused by the pandemic.

Lending towards the agricultural sector through crop loans and agri term loans have been projected at Rs 515 crore and Rs 635 crore respectively.

Bankers and state policy makers agreed to work together to look into the issue of land ownership, which prevents many farmers from obtaining loans for agricultural purposes.

Infosys to provide skill courses for 40L students in Maharashtra

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Over 40 lakh college students from 4,000 colleges across the state can train for free skill-based courses to be offered as part of an agreement between the higher and technical Education department and IT major Infosys as part of its corporate social responsibility initiative.
The courses will include computer programming, cloud computing, , finance and several others.

Minister of higher and technical education, Uday Samant, said that under the MoU, the students are set to benefit from 3,900 skill courses from different categories.

The courses will be open to arts, science and commerce colleges from Nagpur and Technical College, Ratnagiri in the first phase.
Samant said this agreement will benefit 1,600 technical colleges and 10 lakh technical students and 3,000 higher education colleges and 30 lakh students in state.