1) Digital Launch of Employment Exchange for Industries.
- The Union Minister of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, Shri Kalraj Mishra, digitally launched the Employment Exchange for Industries.
- Digital employment exchange is in line with the Prime Minister’s vision of Digital India wherein through this employment exchange for industries, job seekers can find employers and vice versa.
- The Minister urged all the youth of the country and the industry to make use of the Employment exchange for industry by using the web site ``http://www.eex.dcsmse.gov.in/``.
2) CSIR contributes to India’s National Programme on Micro Air Vehicles.
- Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) set up a Micro Air Vehicle Aerodynamics Research Tunnel (MART) at the CSIR-National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL) campus, Bengaluru.
- CSIR provided a boost to the India’s National Programme on Micro Air Vehicles (NP-MICAV) jointly coordinated by the Defence Research & Development Organization (DRDO) and the Department of Science & Technology of Government of India.
- The tunnel, first of its kind in India, will be used to test the fixed-wing, flapping-wing and rotary-wing MAVs in the 500 mm wingspan category.
About National Programme-Micro Air Vehicles (NP-MICAV):
- In August 2010, the NP-MICAV was launched with an aim to develop Micro Air Vehicle and their related technologies. The duration of this ambitious joint project is five years and entails a cost of 1.15 crores rupees.
- Micro air vehicles (MICAV) are small and lightweight flying platforms with a maximum wingspan of 300 mm, all-up weight of 350 grams and payload capacity of 40-60 grams. Micro air vehicles (MICAV) can be deployed for numerous applications, spanning both civilian and military roles.
3) Haridwar Mail renamed as Yoga Express.
- Indian Railways has rechristened Haridwar Mail as Yoga Express. However, there will be no change in the train timings and its composition.
- The train No 19031/ 19032 Ahmedabad-Haridwar-Ahmedabad which is also known as ‘Haridwar Mail’ will be named as ‘Yoga Express’.
- Union Government is observing International Yoga Day on 21 June 2015.
4) Election Commission suspends recognition of P.A. Sangma-led National People’s Party.
- The Election Commission suspended the recognition of the P.A. Sangma-led National People’s Party (NPP)-a recognised state party in Meghalaya-for its ``failure`` to file the election expenditure statement for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
- The NPP is headed by former Lok Sabha Speaker P.A. Sangma.
- The recognition of NPP was suspended under para 16A of the Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order, 1968 after the party failed to file the election expenditure statement incurred in 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
- ECI decision in this regard comes in line with Supreme Court’s judgement in the case of Common Cause Vs Union of India and others. In this judgement SC had made compulsion for all political parties to file their election expenditure statement within 75 days of assembly elections and 90 days of Lok Sabha elections.
- In case of NPP, they failed report their election expenses even after ECI had slapped two show cause notices in this regard. With this, NPP became first party to be suspended under Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order 1968, for its failure to follow the lawful directions of the ECI.
About National People’s Party:
- Established: 6 January 2013.
- Leader: P.A Sangma.
- Election symbol of party was Book.
- It is a national-level tribalcentric political party. It had most of its influence concentrated in the state of Meghalaya.
- At present NPP has one Lok Sabha member- PA Sangma from Tura constituency from Meghalaya. It also has 4 members in Rajasthan Legislative assembly and 2 in Meghalaya Legislative assembly.
5) Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) launched mobile app ASCIonline for consumer complaint.
- ASCI the self regulatory body for content in Indian advertising, launched the country’s first consumer complaint mobile app named ASCIonline.
- ASCI launched this consumer friendly app with an aim to address the issue of misleading advertisements.
About Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI):
Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) is a self-regulatory voluntary organization of the advertising industry.
Established: 1985.
Headquarters: Mumbai.
Chairman: Narendra Ambwani.
6) Union Cabinet approved Housing for All by 2022 Mission.
- The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, gave its approval for launch of ``Housing for All by 2022`` aimed for urban areas with following components, options to States, Union Territories and cities:
- Slum rehabilitation of Slum Dwellers with participation of private developers using land as a resource.
- Promotion of affordable housing for weaker section through credit linked subsidy
- Affordable housing in partnership with Public & Private sectors
- Subsidy for beneficiary-led individual house construction or enhancement.
- It will be implemented as a Centrally Sponsored Scheme and the States and Union Territories (UTs) are given greater autonomy in execution of the mission.
- Houses constructed under the mission would be allotted in the name of the female head of the households or in the joint name of the male head of the household and his wife.
About Housing for All by 2022 Mission:
- Central grant of Rs. one lakh per house, on an average, will be available under the slum rehabilitation programme.
- Under the Credit Linked Interest Subsidy component interest subsidy of 6.5 percent on housing loans availed up to a tenure of 15 years will be provided to Economically Weaker Sections/ Lower Income Group (EWS/LIG) categories, wherein the subsidy pay-out on Net Present Value (NPV) basis would be about 2.3 lakh rupees per house for both the categories.
- Central assistance at the rate of 1.5 lakh rupees per house for EWS category will be provided under Affordable housing component in partnership with public and private sectors and Beneficiary-led individual house construction or enhancement. State Government or their para statals like Housing Boards can take up project of affordable housing to avail the Central Government grant.
- It will cover the entire urban area consisting of 4041 statutory towns with initial focus on 500 Class I cities and it will be implemented in three phases Phase-I (April 2015 – March 2017) to cover 100 Cities to be selected from States/ UTs as per their willingness, Phase – II (April 2017 – March 2019) to cover additional 200 Cities and Phase-III (April 2019 – March 2022) to cover all other remaining Cities.
7) Union Cabinet approves introduction of the Bureau of Indian Standards Bill, 2015.
- The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, gave its approval to introduce a new Bureau of Indian Standards Bill, 2015.
- The bill is intended to improve the quality of goods, services and systems in the country.
The main objectives of the proposed legislation are:
- To establish the Bureau of Indian standards (BIS) as the National Standards Body of India.
- The Bureau to perform its functions through a Governing Council, which will consist of its President and other members.
- To enable the Government to bring under the mandatory certification regime such article, process or service which it considers necessary from the point of view of health, safety, environment, prevention of deceptive practices, security etc. This will help consumers receive ISI certified products and will also help in prevention of import of sub-standard products.
- To allow multiple types of simplified conformity assessment schemes including Self Declaration Of Conformity (SDOC) against any standard which will give multiple simplified options to manufacturers to adhere to standards and get a certificate of conformity, thus improving the "ease of doing business".
- To enable the Central Government to appoint any authority, in addition to the Bureau of Indian Standards, to verify the conformity of products and services to a standard and issue certificate of conformity.
- To enable the Government to implement mandatory hallmarking of precious metal articles.
- To strengthen penal provisions for better and effective compliance and enable compounding of offences for violations.
- To provide recall, including product liability of products bearing the Standard Mark, but not conforming to relevant Indian Standards.
8) Union Cabinet revised target of solar power under JNNSM to 100000 MW by 2022.
- The government raised the solar power generation capacity addition target by five times to 1,00,000 MW by 2022, which will entail an investment of around Rs. 6 lakh crore.
- The earlier target was producing solar power of 20000 MW by 2022.
- The target will principally comprise of 40 GW rooftop and 60 GW through large and medium scale grid connected solar power projects.
- In the first phase, the Government of India is providing Rs. 15,050 crore as capital subsidy to promote solar capacity.
- Capital subsidy will be provided for Rooftop Solar projects in various cities and towns, for Viability Gap Funding (VGF) based projects to be developed through the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) and for decentralised generation through small solar projects.
9) Centre increases number of work days under MGNREGA.
- The Union Government decided to increase the number of workdays under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) from 100 days to 150 days in drought-affected areas of the country.
- The Centre will bear the cost of providing work to rural households for 50 more days and it will be applicable to only the households which complete 100 days of work.
- The decision to increase the wage days in drought-affected areas was taken as Government is expecting an increase in demand for wage-based employment due to drought affecting regular agricultural activities in some places.
10) Union Minister of Chemicals & Fertilizers Shri Ananth Kumar launches Cluster Development Programme for Pharma Sector.
- The Union Minister of Chemicals & Fertilizers Shri Ananth Kumar formally launched the Cluster Development Programme for Pharma Sector (CDS-PS) in New Delhi.
- The scheme is intended to enhance quality, productivity and innovative capabilities of the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the pharmacy sector.
11) Cabinet gives portion of National Instrument Limited to DRDO.
- Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi approved the transfer of a portion of land of erstwhile National Instruments Limited (NIL) to Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).
- The land will be transferred by Jadavpur University in West Bengal for establishment of a defence research centre namely the Jagadish Chandra Bose Centre for Advanced Technology (JCBCAT).
- This will be beneficial for India as Research and Development efforts will result in reduction in import dependence in the strategic sector.
- The National Instruments Limited (NIL) at Jadavpur was a Central Public Sector Enterprise under the administrative control of the Department of Heavy Industry. As it became sick, its assets, liabilities and manpower were transferred to Jadavpur University.
12) Agreement on the abolition of visa requirements for holders of diplomatic passports between India and Spain.
- The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi gave its approval for signing of an agreement on the abolition of visa requirement for holders of diplomatic passports between India and Spain.
- The Agreement will facilitate visa-free travel for holders of diplomatic passport of one country while entering into, transiting through, exiting from or staying for up to 90 days in the territory of the other country with additional safeguards.
13) CCEA gives nod for inclusion of Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh in National Dairy Plan-I.
- The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, has given its approval for:
- Inclusion of Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh in the list of States to be covered under the National Dairy Plan - I (NDP - I).
- Extended the implementation period upto 2018-19 in order to achieve key outputs of National Dairy Plan - I.
- Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh are newly formed States which are inhabited by tribal population having substantial milch animal population and have the potential for coverage under NDP - I.
- Although Uttarakhand was not included for all the approved components under the NDP - I, but the Project Implementation Plan document included sub projects of Animal Breeding and Strengthening of Semen Stations for implementation in Uttarakhand.
- Considering the potential for implementation of Ration Balancing Programme, Fodder Development and Village Based Milk Procurement System, Uttarakhand has also been included under NDP - I.
About National Dairy Plan - I:
- National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) had approved NDP-I in 14 milk potential through the EIAs. It was formulated with a total outlay of 2242 crore rupees for a period of 6 years from 2011-12 to 2016-17.
- At present NDP - I is being implemented in 15 States which account for more than 90 per cent of the country’s total milk production and 98 per cent of the country’s fodder resources. They also account for over 87 per cent of the breedable cattle and buffalo population.
- 15 states are Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Gujarat, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Maharashtra, Punjab, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.
14) Union Agriculture Minister Launched Nowcast and Insurance Web-Portals for Farmers.
- Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh launched a free SMS service called `NOWCAST`.
- The application will provide alerts and updates on extreme weather conditions such as thunder, hailstorms, originated by India Meteorological Department (IMD) to over one crore farmers whose mobile numbers are registered on government’s mKisan portal.
About NOWCAST Application:
- The free SMS service would be sent in English, Hindi and other regional languages as per farmer`s choice.
- The alerts on extreme weather conditions will be provided every three hours.
- The extreme weather conditions and reports will be moved to the mKisan portal using a web service. (www.farmer.gov.in/insurance).
- "IMD`(India Meteorological Department) has 17 doppler radars that feed information on extreme weather to these stations``.
- Warnings from the mKisan portal will be automatically disseminated to farmers located at various district and block level, by SMS.
15) Minimum Support Prices for Kharif Crops for 2015-16 season.
- The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, has given its approval for the Minimum Support Prices (MSPs) for Kharif Crops of 2015-16 Season.
- The decision is based on recommendations of Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) for the Price Policy for Kharif Crops for the Marketing Season 2015-16.
About:
- For 2014-15 kharif season, the government had fixed the MSP of common variety paddy at Rs 1,360 and grade A variety grain at Rs. 1,400 per quintal.
- The CCEA decided to give a bonus of 200 rupees per quintal for pulses over and above the recommendations of the CACP in view of a huge deficit of pulses in the country.
- The approved MSPs of pulses per quintal, inclusive of bonus, are: Tur (Arhar) – 4625 rupees against 4350 rupees during the 2014-15 season; Moong- 4850 rupees against 4600 rupees; and Urad 4625 rupees against 4350 rupees during the previous season.
- Hybrid and Maldandi varieties of jowar were raised by 40 rupees per quintal to 1530 and 1550 respectively.
16) Jharkhand bans thermocol plates.
- Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghuvar Das imposed a ban on the sale of thermocol plates with the move aimed at the promotion of leaf plates in the state.
- The move will help generate employment for the poor and tribals who are engaged in making leaf plates.
- The Chief Minister, who is on a two-day visit to West Singhbhum district including naxal-affected Saranda, also announced one lakh rupees to the villages which will become liquor-free.
- Besides, the Chief Minister also directed officials to provide electricity in the Saranda area through solar power.
17) `Atithi Devo Bhava` TV commercials starring Aamir Khan as brand ambassador.
- The Minister of State for Tourism (Independent Charge), Culture (Independent Charge) and Civil Aviation Mahesh Sharma launched the new edition of Atithi Devo Bhava television (TV) commercials starring Aamir Khan as brand ambassador.
- The four films, made on the theme of Atithi Devo Bhava, will spread awareness about ways to extend hospitality to tourists visiting India by adopting an honest and helpful attitude, as well as maintaining cleanliness and hygiene.
- Aamir Khan is the brand ambassador for these films, which have been directed by adman Prasoon Joshi.
Other announcements:
- A brochure titled ``India - the Land of Yoga`` was also launched at the function organized in New Delhi.
- Setting up of a National Medical and Wellness Tourism Board to boost medical tourism.
- Development of four new tourist circuits on the themes of Wildlife, Spiritual, Desert and Ramayana under the Swadesh Darshan scheme. These four circuits will be in addition to the five circuits already being developed by the Union Ministry of Tourism.
18) Haryana launches Village Mentoring Project to uplift villagers.
- Haryana Government has launched a Village Mentoring Project (VMP) in a bid to improve healthcare and education of the villagers with a special emphasis on girl child.
- The project would create awareness among the villagers about various issues including educating girl child, health, financial matters etc.
- The Village Mentoring Project (VMP) is the first of its kind in Haryana under which villages in the state would be mentored by leading corporate houses, educational institutions and other organizations.
- Each of the 22 districts in the state would be launching the project in a phased manner in around five villages each.
19) Yoga steps into Guinness World Records.
- The Ministry of AYUSH has been awarded with two Guinness World Records in two different categories on the first International Day of Yoga.
- Category 1 was for the largest number of participants in a Yoga Lesson at single venue. The earlier record was of 29,973. To beat that record a target of 30,000 was required. The Ministry broke that record as 35,985 participants performed Yoga at Rajpath
- Category 2 was most number of nationalists in a Yoga Lesson. To achieve this at least participants from 50 countries were required to perform. But participants from 84 countries performed Yoga at Rajpath.
- Shri Shripad Yesso Naik. MoS(I/C). Ministry of AYUSH and Secretary AYUSH received the awards which were presented by the representatives of Guinness World Records Ms. Victoria from UK and Mr. Marco Frigatti from Italy.
20) NHAI invited bids for Bharat Mala Project.
- Government has fast-tracked preparatory work for Bharat Mala project with NHAI inviting bids for preparing the detailed project reports (DPRs) of over 3,500 km of roads along the border and coast lines.
- Bharat Mala project is an ambitious plan of Union Ministry of Roads Transport & Highways which contemplated building about 5000 km of road networks in the country and link border and coastal areas with road network. The overall investment is estimated around 50000 crore rupees.
- The entire network will stretch across 15 states with Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu & Puducherry, Uttarakhand, Odisha, Gujarat and Punjab getting substantial portion of this network.
21) EPFO made UAN mandatory for all employers under Employee Provident Fund Act, 1952.
- Retirement fund body EPFO (Employee Provident Fund Organisation) notified an order to make Universal Account Number (UAN) mandatory for all employers covered under the Employees Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions Act 1952.
- The UAN facility that remains portable throughout the lifetime of an employee was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 1 October 2014. The deadline for completing the formalities of UAN is August 2015.
- The UAN remains portable throughout the lifetime of an employee and they don`t have to apply for PF transfer claims at changing jobs.
- EPFO has issued more than four crore UANs to employers across the nation and more than 56 lakh workers have activated their portable PF account numbers.
- Maharashtra gets `State Butterfly`.
- Maharashtra has become the first state in the country to have a ‘state butterfly’.
- The BJP-led government has declared the Blue Mormon (Papilio polymnestor) as the state butterfly.
- The decision was taken at meeting of the state Wildlife Board in Mumbai.