UTTAR PRADESH
· Urban households in UP to now get additional Rs 12,000 each to construct toilets.
ð Urban local bodies across Uttar Pradesh will now provide an additional assistance of Rs 12,000 to each individual household to construct toilets. An estimated 655 statutory cities and towns in the state are to become open defecation-free (ODF) by October 2022 under the Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban). Till now beneficiaries were getting Rs 4,000 from state government and the same amount from the Centre (total Rs 8,000) each to build toilet in urban areas in the state.
ð According to government sources the decision regarding additional assistance for toilet-building was taken during a high-level review of progress in UP of new urban missions launched by the central government during the last three years.
ð The review meeting covered implementation of Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT), Smart City Mission, SBM (U), Heritage City Development and Augmentation Yojana (HRIDAY), Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban) and Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana,
ð Officials also stated that under the Atal Mission, 13.30 lakh urban households in UP will be provided tap water connections.
ð Besides, with an investment of Rs 11,176 crore, water supply and sewerage networks would be improved, while parks and open spaces would be developed in towns at a cost of Rs 246 crore.
· 1.62 lakh schools in UP fail national `Swachhata’ test.
ð From government schools of UP, not a single out of 1.62 lakh of them was considered fit for Swachh Vidyalya Puraskar (SVP), 2016 announced by Union minister for human resource development . In all, 172 schools from across the country were given the award.
Although UP has highest number of government schools, only five of them were recommended by the state government for the award. 3,808 schools from UP initially registered online for the SVP.
ð For the first time, government schools have been ranked on the basis of cleanliness on various criteria such as water, sanitation, hand washing with soap, operations and maintenance, behaviour change and capacity building.
INTERNATIONAL
- World record breaking 288 days in outer space by Astronaut Peggy Whitson
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) astronaut Peggy Whitson finishing a 288-day mission that put her over the top as the American who has spent the most cumulative amount of time in space.
- The oldest female astronaut in the history of space exploration was the first female International Space Station commander and holds the record for number of spacewalks by a woman.
- Nepal Signs UN Development Assistance Plan
- Nepalhas signed a USD 635 million UN assistance package for 2018-2022 to lay out the country’s development strategy for the next five years.
- The package involves many individual UN agencies National Planning Commission apex advisory body of the Government of Nepal and the United Nations Country Team(UNCT) in Nepal signed the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF).
- The strong alignment of the UNDAF with the national plans, international conventions and the Nepal government provides the foundation to support the Government of Nepal’s efforts in ensuring that ‘no one is left behind’ as laid out in the Sustainable Development Goals.
National
- Jammu and Kashmir Government to introduce ‘electric buses’ in Srinagar
- The Jammu and Kashmir Government introduces the electric buses for two cities of Srinagar and Jammu under the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) scheme.
- It is done with an aim to curb pollution in these two cities which were recently declared ‘smart cities’.
- Introduction of ‘electric buses’would help in making the environment healthy and also in providing a trustworthy public transport.
- New list of Cabinet ministers and their portfolios
- List of ministers and their portfolios are given below
Shri Piyush Goyal – Union Railway Minister
Nirmala Sitharaman – Union Defence Minister
Shri Nitin Jairam Gadkari – Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways; Shipping; and Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation.
Shri Suresh Prabhu – Union Minister of Commerce and Industry.
Shri D.V. Sadananda Gowda – Union Minister of Statistics and Programme Implementation.
Smt. Uma Bharati – Union Minister of Drinking Water and Sanitation.
Shri Dharmendra Pradhan – Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas; and Skill Development and Entrepreneurship.
Shri Alphons Kannanthanam – Union Minister of tourism; and Electronics and Information Technology.
- Nine new members were inducted into Council of Ministers of NDA Government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in recent reshuffle. The aim of reshuffle was to reinforce 4Ps — passion, proficiency, professional and political acumen in Government.
Hardeep Singh Puri: Minister of State (Independent Charge) Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.
Satya Pal Singh: MoS Human Resource Development and MoS Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation.
Shiv Pratap Shukla: MoS Finance Ministry.
Raj Kumar Singh: MoS (Independent Charge) of Ministry of Power; and MoS (Independent Charge) of Ministry of New and Renewable Energy
Virendra Kumar: MoS in Ministry of Women and Child Development; and MoS in Ministry of Minority Affairs
Anantkumar Hegde: MoS in Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship.
- Nirmala Sitharaman: India’s first full time woman Defence Minister.
- Nirmala Sitharaman (58) became first full time woman Defence Minister of India after she was promoted to the Union Cabinet. She takes charge of the crucial ministry from Union Finacne Minister Arun Jaitley.
- Ms Sitharaman is second woman to become Defence Minister of India. First was former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who was holding additional portfolio as Defence Minister from 1980-82.
· Government drops plan to protect transgender labour rights
- The NDA government has dropped plans to recognise transgender persons as the ‘third gender’ in the country’s labour law framework.
In 2014, the Supreme Court had for the first time recognised transgender persons as the ‘third gender’ and asked the Centre and the States to give them equal opportunities in education and employment.
- But now this reform, part of the Labour Ministry’s draft law to codify wages and aimed at protecting transgender workers from discrimination, has been shelved following reservations expressed by the Law Ministry.
- The Wages Code Bill was drafted under an exercise to rationalise the country’s 44 labour laws into four codes covering all the regulations pertaining to wages, industrial relations, social security and safety, and health and working conditions.
- Govt announces email service for officials in English, Hindi
- The government today announced email service for its 5 million personnels in English and Hindi in accordance with the email policy.
- The email policy bars the government employees from using private email services due to security reasons.
- The primary domain for English email id will (at)gov (dot)in and for Hindi email id it will be sarkar(dot)bharat in Hindi script.
- The announcement from MEITY comes about 10 days after Rajasthangovernment launched first email service for residents in the state.
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