❑ An Aadhaar card is a must for women living in Below Poverty Line (BPL) households to avail of free cooking gas (LPG) connection under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwal Yojana (PMUY).
✦ The government launched the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwal Yojana last year to provide free LPG connections to 5 crore poor women in three years. The government now gives 12 cylinders of 14.2 kg each at subsidised rates per household in a year.
❑ Inter-State River Water Disputes (Amendment) Bill, 2017, introduced by water resources minister Uma Bharati, proposes a single standing tribunal (with multiple benches) instead of multiple tribunals that exist at present.
Swaraj India
❑ Swaraj India, founded by Yogendra Yadav, received its registration certificate from the Election Commission on 1st March, 2017, after formal registration on February 23, 2017.
✦ On October 2, 2016, the party was launched as an-all India political party with a federal organizational structure in a founding convention.
Online ticketing system
❑ Indian Railways has introduced the Aadhar based online ticketing system to prevent touts from blocking a bulk of tickets, end fraudulent bookings.
✦ The Aadhar number has been made mandatory for senior citizens to avail concessions in train tickets from April 1, 2017.
❑ The Ministry of Women and Child Development has organized a social media campaign- #We Are Equal - targeted at raising awareness about gender discrimination.
The Enemy Property Bill
❑ The Enemy Property (Amendment and Validation) Bill, 2016, which amends the Enemy Property Act, 1968, was passed by Parliament of India. As per the amendments, heirs of those who migrated to Pakistan and China during Partition will have no claim over the properties left behind in India, with Parliament on 14th March 2017 passing a Bill to amend a 49-year-old law.
✦ According to the Bill, 'enemy property' refers to any property belonging to, held or managed on behalf of an enemy, an enemy subject or an enemy firm.
NMCG
❑ Executive Committee (EC) of National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) has approved 20 projects worth Rs.1,900 Crore have been approved for swift implementation of Namami Gange Programme in Uttarakhand, Bihar, Jharkhand and Delhi.
✦ The programme is centrally funded which includes the expenditure on operation and maintenance of these projects.
Call for action
❑ India with World Health Organization (WHO) signed a 'call for action' and pledged to scale up measures to end the Tuberculosis by 2030. Six of the South Asian region countries Bangladesh, DPR Korea, India, Indonesia, Myanmar and Thailand are among the 30 high TB burden nations globally.
✦ India among other countries in the South East Asian Region bears half of the global tuberculosis burden and reports 2.8 million new TB cases annually and nearly half a million deaths due to the disease.
Arsenic-affected persons
❑ According to the latest report, Bengal topped the list with more than 1.04 crore arsenicaffected persons as on March 4, 2017. Bihar comes second with 16.88 lakh persons, with Assam in third spot with 14.48 lakh victims. The total number of arsenic-affected people in the country is about 1.48 crore.
✦ According to the WHO's guidelines for drinking water quality (2011), the permissible limit of Arsenic in groundwater is .01 mg per litre.
Without Aadhaar no midday meals..
❑ The Union Govt has announced that children would not be deprived of midday meals if they did not have an Aadhaar number. Where facilities for an Aadhaar number could not be made available, the States would provide unique numbers to the students.
❑ According to a department of telecom (DoT) notification that was issued on March 24, 2017, the telecom operators have been directed to re-verify their existing subscribers - both prepaid and postpaid - through an Aadhaar-based eKYC process by February 6, 2018.
✦ This order follows the Supreme Court order of February 6, 2017 that Aadhaar-based eKYC verification should be done for all mobile phone numbers in the country. Cheapest cities in the world
❑ Four Indian cities are among the cheapest to live in globally, while Singapore has been ranked as the most expensive for the fourth consecutive year, as per a report by Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). Bangalore (3rd place), Chennai (6th), Mumbai (7th) and New Delhi (10th) have been ranked by EIU among the 10 cheapest cities in the world.
✦ Almaty has been ranked as the cheapest city in the world followed by Lagos. The EIU's Worldwide Cost of Living 2017 report - a ranking of the world's major cities - said Asia is home to some of the world's most expensive cities and also to many of the world's cheapest cities.
Ram Setu
❑ The Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) is set to undertake an archeological exploration to find out whether the Ram Setu is a natural or man-made phenomenon. Also known as Adam's Bridge, Ram Setu is a stretch of limestone shoals running from Pamban Island near Rameswaram in Tamil Nadu to the Mannar Island near the northern coast of Sri Lanka.
Domestic tourism
❑ Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh received most number of domestic tourists in 2016. As per the data released by the Ministry, a total of 344.3 million domestic tourists visited Tamil Nadu in 2016 while 229.6 million in Uttar Pradesh. The domestic tourism sector continued its growth momentum with recording a jump of 15.5% in tourists' visits to various states and Union Territories during 2016.
BASF new innovation campus
❑ BASF Group inaugurated its new innovation campus in Mumbai with a total expected investment of up to € 50 million from BASF Group, and marks the Group's largest research and development (R&D) investment in South Asia.
✦ All global research operations at BASF Innovation Campus Asia Pacific (Mumbai) will be housed under BASF Chemicals India Private Limited, a 100% subsidiary of BASF SE, according to a company statement.
Railways projects
❑ The Railways has sanctioned projects worth Rs.13,500 crore for the North East in this year's budget. Several new projects amounting to about Rs.13,500 crore have been sanctioned in this year's budget including new lines, bridges and an elevated rail tract project from Kamakhya to New Guwahati at a cost of Rs.3,062 crore.
Open Acreage Licensing Policy
❑ India has announced an Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP) for conducting oil and gas exploration in India. The auction of oil and gas blocks under the Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP) will be conducted twice a year with the first round being held in July 2017.
✦ The new OALP policy will allow the bidder to select the exploration areas on their own and carve out areas where they want to drill. This will allow pricing and marketing freedom to operators and shifts to a revenue sharing model.
National Health Policy
❑ The government has approved the National Health Policy which proposes to provide assured health services to all in the country. The policy promises to increase public health spending to 2.5% of GDP in a time-bound manner and guarantees health care services to all Indian citizens, particularly the underprivileged.
✦ The policy increases the gambit of sectors covered in the Primary Health Centre (PHC) level and envisages a comprehensive approach.
Videoconferencing facilities
❑ In a recent judgment Supreme Court asked High Courts to pass administrative directions to district and lower courts to open up their videoconferencing facilities so that couples engaged in matrimonial cases need not travel distances, probably even to other States, to personally attend their divorce hearings.
Bill for treatment
❑ A crucial bill to ensure equal rights to people afflicted by HIV and AIDS in getting treatment, admission in educational institutions and jobs, was passed by the Rajya Sabha on 21st March, 2017.
✦ The Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) (Prevention and Control) Bill, 2014, moved by Health Minister JP Nadda, was passed in the Upper House by a voice vote.
Human Development Index
❑ India slipped down one place from 130 to 131 among the 188 countries ranked in terms of human development. India's HDI value of 0.624 puts it in the 'medium human development' category, alongside countries such as Congo, Namibia and Pakistan.
✦ It is ranked third among the SAARC countries, behind Sri Lanka (73) and the Maldives (105), both of which figure in the 'high human development' category. The world's top three countries in HDI are Norway (0.949), Australia (0.939) and Switzerland (0.939)
Longest road tunnel
India's longest road tunnel, built on the Jammu-Srinagar National Highway, has been announced to open to traffic in near future following the success of the trial run.
✦ The work on the 9.2-km tube tunnel, which is part of a 286-km, four-lane project, started on May 23, 2011 in the lower Himalayan mountain range and cost Rs. 3,720 crore.
50 new Kendriya Vidyalayas
Union Govt has decided to establish fifty new Kendriya Vidyalayas (KVs) across the country to provide quality education to around 50,000 students with the Cabinet giving a go ahead to the project. ✦ The schools, which will be set up under the civil sector for classes 1 to 5, will provide quality education to approximately 50,000 students in addition to around 12 lakh students already studying in present KVs
Aadhaar is mandatory for..
Now Aadhaar is mandatory for the availing the schemes like DISHA Programme, INSPIRE Award, INSPIRE Scholarship, INSPIRE Internship, INSPIRE Fellowship and INSPIRE Faculty.
✦ The INSPIRE (Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research) scholarships and DISHA scheme (for women scientists) have been designed to reach students and women-researchers across all districts
