1) Rajasthan Becomes the first state in India to clear land title Bill.
- The Rajasthan Urban Land (Certification of Titles) Bill 2016 passed by the state assembly is aimed at curbing fraud practices in sale and purchase of non-agricultural land in urban areas by issuing a certificate of ownership for a nominal fee.
- The Bill would give clear titles to urban land owners and would reduce litigations in court. People would be able to seek certificate of title to claim ownerships of their non-agricultural lands falling in urban areas - those governed by the municipalities or the development authorities - by paying a nominal fee to the state government.
2) Green UP - Clean UP programme.
- The Uttar Pradesh government has directed all the district magistrates for plantation of five crore trees at 6,500 sites in 24 hours on a date fixed in month of July under the ‘Green UP - Clean UP’ programme.
- The coding of plantation sites should be done according to IGRS based coding of NIC. All online data of plantation sites should be prepared with the cooperation of National Informatics Centre (NIC) to ensure effective district-wise monitoring.
- Control room for this project would be set up at district level by District tree-plantation committees for efficient execution of the programme, it would be monitored by Zonal Forest Officer.
3) Maharashtra to pull all major public services online.
- Maharashtra will be launching a mobile application and digital payment gateway by the end of the year to facilitate to make all public services online so that a citizen does not have to visit a government office at all. The initiative was announced by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.
- 150 public-related services have been taken online and by the October, the government is targeting to take the number to 250 which shall cover all the major services used by citizens.
- Maharashtra government has signed with Exuberant Support for Data Services to invest Rs. 200 crore in the facility, which will create 500 new jobs by the end of fiscal 2017-18.
4) Konkan Railway to build 11 stations.
- The Konkan Railway Corporation Ltd (KRCL) will construct 11 new stations and eight loop lines along its 741 km network to enhance line capacity and handle more trains.
- The average distance between two stations on a single-line network, like KRCL, should be 8 to 10 km for easier train movements.
- KRCL is strongly focusing on enhancing freight loading to improve revenues. It is prepared to offer containerized traffic and also ready to provide exclusive rakes for movement of parcel traffic.
5) Centre to Issue Universal ID-Cards for Differently-Abled People.
- Union Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment Krishan Pal Gurjar has decided to issue universal identification cards for physically handicapped people across the country.
- Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment to issue universal identification card for physically handicapped people. Some states do not accept cards of other states which leads to inconvenience. Thus, to shun this, the Centre has decided to issue universal cards. And also provide motor-operated wheel chairs for beneficiaries at subsidised prices.
6) India gets its first heat index.
- The India Meteorological Department (IMD) for the first time will introduce a heat index for the country. The index will be available on the IMD website, and will be updated every three hours across all weather stations.
- A heat index – a measure of how hot it really feels – is calculated based on actual temperatures and relative humidity levels. Many times, when the temperatures are low but humidity is high, we feel hotter than what the temperature projects. And we don’t feel as hot when the temperatures are high and humidity levels are low.
- The index will give citizens accurate and updated information on the heat conditions specific to their areas.
7) India, Maldives Sign Six Agreements to Boost Ties.
- India and Maldives have signed six agreements in different sectors to boost bilateral relations between both maritime neighboring countries.
- The agreements were signed after comprehensive talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and visiting Maldives President Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom at the Hyderabad House.
The list of signed Agreements:
(1) Double Taxation
(2) Exchange of Information
(3) Defence Cooperation
(4) Space Research
(5) Tourism Cooperation
(6) Conservation and Restoration.
8) Centre to draw up strategy for kharif season.
- The gravity of the agrarian situation after two back-to-back droughts. The Union government is all set to formulate a crop production strategy for the coming summer (kharif) season to ensure that the plan to double farmers income in the next six years gains momentum.
- A national conference on kharif campaign is being held in New Delhi in which senior officials of agriculture and allied sectors from the Centre and States would review the performance of the preceding crop season and formulate a crop production strategy for kharif.
- The kharif campaign-2016 assumes great importance in view of the recent crop damage on account of moisture stress due to deficit, and uneven and untimely rains, hailstorm and other natural calamities across various States.
9) CCRH has signed two MOUs with Canada and Armenia during International Convention on WHD.
- Central Council for Research in homoeopathy (CCRH) has signed two MOUs with institutions of higher education of Canada and Armenia. These MOUs between CCRH and College of Homeopaths of Ontario, Canada and another between CCRH and Yerevan State Medical University, Armenia, were signed during International Convention on World Homoeopathy Day(WHD) organized at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi.
- Shri Shripad Yesso Naik, Hon’ble Minister of State (IC) for AYUSH, on the occasion of World Homoeopathy Day appreciated that Homoeopathy has taken major scientific leaps in the past and its body of evidence is growing by the day.
- It steps taken towards international cooperation during the convention, as it saw the signing of two MoUs in the field of education and research in Homoeopathy.
10) Cabinet Secretary Reviewed the Situation Arising out of Rain Deficiency and Drought affected areas of the Country.
- The Cabinet Secretary, Government of India, today took a meeting to review the situation arising out of rain deficiency and drought affected areas of the country.
- The Central Drought Relief Commissioner made an overarching presentation to this Committee of Secretaries on rain fall deficiency and Kharif 2015, Rabi 2015-16 and measures taken/being taken to obviate difficulties faced by the farmers in the drought hit states.
- Make immediate allocation of funds to the State Governments under Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY) for procurement of fodder. The State Governments should also approach the Centre immediately for availing financial assistance under the National Life Stock Mission implemented by Department of Animal Husbandry, Dairying and Fisheries. A detailed Advisory will issue on measures for increasing availability of fodder to mitigate the effects of drought.
11) Consultative Committee meeting of Members of Parliament attached to the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers on Neem Coated Urea.
- The Consultative Committee meeting of the Department of Fertilizers, Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers in Mumbai. The Union Minister for Chemicals and Fertilizers, Shri Ananth Kumar, chaired the meeting discussed status of Neem Coated Urea production.
- The New Urea Policy, 2015 of Government of India is aimed at maximising indigenous urea production and promoting energy efficiency in existing plants. The Policy has led to an additional production of 20 Lakh Metric Tonnes (LMT) from the previous year and the total production of Urea during the year 2015-16 was 245 LMT ie the highest ever Urea production in the country.
- Neem coated Urea is expected to result in the reduction of consumption of Urea and will also curb diversion of Urea for non agricultural purposes.
12) `Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat` to celebrate cultural vibrancy of India.
- Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat will celebrate the cultural vibrancy of India while establishing a concrete mechanism to inculcate nationalism and cultural awareness among the fellow citizens of our nation.
- Dr. Mahesh Sharma, the Minister of State for Culture and Tourism (I/C) and Civil Aviation while addressing at the National Workshop on "Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat". The National workshop was organised by Ministry of Culture in collaboration with NITI Aayog to initiate with various stakeholders.
- Secretary (Culture) Shri. N.K. Sinha discussed in details, overview and objectives of the Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat programme, areas of interaction and an implementation mechanism to attain these objectives. In a technical session, the detailed presentation on Cultural Mapping of India was presented by Secretary (Culture). In his presentation, detailed roadmap for dovetailing of Cultural Mapping of India with Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat.
13) Monsoon Seasonal Rainfall during the Forthcoming Monsoon to be above normal.
- The monsoon seasonal rainfall during the forthcoming monsoon is likely to be 106% of the Long Period Average (LPA) with a model error of ± 5%. The LPA of the seasonal rainfall over the country as a whole for the period 1951-2000 is 89 cm. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) released the long range forecast for the 2016 southwest monsoon season rainfall.
- The Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune, Ministry of Earth Sciences, has been coordinating and working along with different climate research centers from India and abroad on the development of a coupled model for the forecasting of Indian summer monsoon rainfall under the Monsoon Mission project.
- The latest high resolution research version of the Coupled Forecasting System (CFS) originally developed by the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP), USA has been used to generate experimental forecast for the 2016 southwest Monsoon season rainfall using the February initial conditions.
14) Environment Ministry holds third regional workshop with State governments.
- State government officials for formulating and submitting proposals for accessing climate change finance under the National Adaptation Fund on Climate Change (NAFCC), Green Climate Fund (GCF) and Adaptation Fund Board (AFB), the Environment Ministry held the third regional workshop with State governments in Bengaluru.
- Fourteen States/ Union Territories (U.T.s) from the southern and western regions of the country participated in the workshop.
- Special Secretary, MoEF&CC, Shri Susheel Kumar, Inaugurated the workshop and emphasized the need for generating good quality project proposals in a time-bound manner, which have full ownership by the State government departments. It is anticipated that the project benefits will continue to flow in a sustainable manner after project completion.
15) ONGC takes over Tapti gas field infra to speed up Daman gas output.
- NGC has taken over, from its joint venture partners Reliance Industries and BG, the infrastructure of abandoned Tapti gas field in western offshore. This move would save the company time and upto Rs. 4,000 crore in investments for bringing neighbouring Daman block into production.
- This is the first such transfer of assets in the country. With the infrastructure in place, ONGC plans to advance gas producing to the August-September period. ONGC plans to lay a pipeline from the Daman field to the Tapti process platform, which is connected by a 70 km pipeline to the company`s facility at Hazira.
- ONGC has committed an investment of over Rs. 8,600 crore for the Daman and C-26 cluster projects. The two projects are expected to produce 11 million cubic meters of gas and 11,000 barrels of condensate per day at their peak.
16) The National Workshop on Housing for All-Rural.
- The Union Minister for Rural Development, Panchayati Raj and Drinking Water and Sanitation Chaudhary Birender Singh addressed the National Workshop on Housing for All-Rural in New Delhi.
- Housing for the poor is a priority area for our Government. The Government has declared the intention to provide a good quality house for all by the year 2022. As part of this, we have launched the Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana (PMAY).
- The entire rural housing programme has been revamped in Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana. Subsidy provided by the state and central government has increased by more than 70%. From Rs. 70,000 the allocation has now gone up to Rs. 1,20,000. In hilly and difficult areas it has increased from Rs. 75,000 to Rs. 1,30,000.
17) Indo German Agreement on Namami Gange Signed.
- An Implementation Agreement for Ganga Rejuvenation under the Namami Gange Programme was signed in New Delhi between the Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation and German International Cooperation (GIZ) of Germany.
- The objective of the agreement is to enable responsible stakeholders at National and State level to apply integrated river basin management approach for the rejuvenation of the river Ganga.
- The project will closely cooperate with other National and international initiatives including Indo-German bilateral projects like Support to National Urban Sanitation Policy (SNUSP) and ‘Sustainable Environment-friendly Industrial Production’ (SEIP).
- The project duration is three years i.e. from 2016 to 2018 and the German contribution in the project will be to the tune of Rs. 22.5 crore. Initial actions will focus on the State of Uttarakhand, with scope of expansion to other upstream Ganga States.
18) PM Narendra Modi launched Gram Uday Se Bharat Uday Abhiyan.
- Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid rich floral tributes to B.R. Ambedkar and he launched `Gram Uday Se Bharat Uday Abhiyan` at Mhow, Madhya Pradesh. The Abhiyan (campaign) was launched on the 125th birth anniversary of Babasaheb Ambedkar at his birthplace to strengthen Panchayati Raj in villages and ensure social harmony in villages.
- The campaign also seeks to promote rural development and foster farmers’ welfare and livelihoods to poor. It will focus on generating nationwide efforts on promoting the aim of the programme. The campaign will be run jointly by the Ministries of Rural Development, Agriculture, Social Justice, Labour and Information and Broadcasting along with the States.
19) The pilot launch of e-NAM - National Agriculture Market.
- The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, addressed a gathering of farmers at the pilot launch of e-NAM - the e-trading platform for the National Agriculture Market (NAM).
- 21 mandis from 8 States have joined e-NAM. This is a turning point for the agriculture community. The agriculture sector has to be looked at holistically, and it is only then that maximum benefit of the farmer can be ensured.
- 200 mandis will be linked within five Months and 585 Mandis by March, 2018. Various Schemes Initiated to Double Farmers Income in next Five Years.
20) Govt imposes anti-dumping duty on N-Butyl Alcohol.
- The government imposed an anti-dumping duty of up to USD 149 on imports of a chemical used in fermentation of sugar from five countries, including the European Union, Malaysia, Singapore and the US.
- The Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC), in a notification, Normal Butanol, or N-Butyl Alcohol, exported from the EU, Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa and the United States was found to be below normal value, thus establishing dumping of the same.
- Directorate General of anti-dumping and Allied duites (DGAD) in its investigation had found out that Normal Butanol, or N-Butyl Alcohol exported from five countries mentioned above was found to be below normal value compared to domestic value, thus causing material injury to domestic injury.
21) Bhimrao Ambedkar Awas Yojana for widows.
- Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das launched the `Bhimrao Ambedkar Awas Yojana` for widows. A target of 11,000 units (houses) has been set in the current financial year for the programme and Rs 80 crore has been earmarked in the budget for it.
- In this programme contributes Rs. 75,000 would be granted to build a house in districts in hilly terrains and Rs. 70,000 in plains and the amount would be distributed among the beneficiaries in three installments in their bank accounts.
22) Odisha CM inaugurates cheap meal centers.
- Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik launched the second phase of subsidized meal scheme, Aahar, at a special programme organized in Cuttack. Opening of 100 more Aahar centres across the State as part of Government’s cheap meal programme for the poor.
- In this schema over 60,000 people will be provided food at these centers every day. The government officials to ensure quality of the food and maintain hygiene at Aahar outlets. The government has formed district aahar societies to monitor smooth functioning of the Aahar outlets at the district-level.
23) Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences inks MoU with Centre’s PSU.
- Bhubaneswar based Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS) and Educational Consultants India Limited (EdCIL), a central PSU, jointly signed a MoU to work in areas of education and human resource development.
- KISS and EdCIL will engage for academic collaborations and exchanges. EdCIL will provide financial support for organizing research projects and conferences. EdCIL distributed books worth over Rs. 4.5 lakhs to around 9000 tribal students from class I to class V of KISS on the ocassion.