KERALA
- Guruvayur temple in Kerala
- Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered prayers at Guruvayur temple in Kerala ahead of his Maldives trip.
- The presiding deity is Mahavishnu, worshipped according to the pooja routines laid down by Adi Sankaracharya and later written in to the Tantrasamuchaya by Chennas Narayanan Namboodiri (born in 1427).
- According to the legends, the idol worshipped here is more than 5,000 years old. But there are no historical records to establish it. In the 14th century Tamil literature ‘Kokasandesam’, references about a place called Kuruvayur is made. As early as 16th century (50 years after the Narayaneeyam was composed) many references are seen about Kuruvayur. In ancient Dravidic, Kuruvai means sea, hence the village on the coast may be called Kuruvayur.
INTERNATIONAL
- Abu Dhabi to host first ISA’s joint security exercise ISALEX19
- Abu Dhabi, UAE is hosting first International Security Alliance from 1 July 2019.
- Representatives of 50 law enforcement agencies of the are taking part in the ISALEX19.
- The International Security Alliance, launched in 2017 in Abu Dhabi, is an international working group to confront organised, transnational and extremist crimes.
- The alliance now comprises nine countries, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, France, Italy, Spain, Senegal, Singapore, and the Slovak Republic.
NATIONAL
- HRD ministry releases EQUIP vision plan
- In a bid to transform the higher education sector in the country, the Ministry of Human Resource Development released an ambitious five-year vision plan.
- The report has been termed as Education Quality Upgradation and Inclusion Programme (EQUIP), which will be taken to the Cabinet for approval after inter-departmental consultations.
- The groups of ten experts drawn from senior academicians, administrators and industrialists have suggested more than 50 initiatives that would transform the higher education sector completely.
- Indian Naval Ship Tarkash reaches Alexandria
- Indian Naval Ship Tarkash reached Alexandria on a three-day visit to Egypt, as a part of Western Fleet Overseas Deployment programme.
- During the visit of Tarkash professional interactions are planned with the Egyptian Navy towards further enhancing co-operation between the two forces.
- The geostrategic location of Egypt provides this visit with the unique advantage of being at the crossroads of Africa, Asia and Europe.
- Uttarakhand unemployment rate higher than country’s; urban areas worst-affected
- Union ministry of statistics and programme implementation released the findings of the withheld Periodic Labour Force Survey for 2017-18 conducted by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO). The report highlighted a surge in the unemployment rate to 6.1 per cent, a 45-year high.
- While the report points towards a nationwide concern, the scenario is even grimmer for Uttarakhand where the unemployment rate stands at 7.6%, which is 1.5% higher than the national unemployment rate. The data pegged the unemployment rate aong the urban youth of the state at a massive 27.7%.
- The NSSO report further adds that the unemployment rate among post-graduates, graduates, and diploma holders in the state is 26.5%, 21.5%, and 18% respectively.
The findings of the survey also suggest that the women in the state find it even more difficult to bag a job as the number of women seeking jobs surpasses the number of job-seeking men, both in rural and urban areas. While the unemployment rate among post graduate and graduate women stood at 50% and 33.6% respectively, the rate is pegged at 17.3% and 18.6% respectively among post-graduate and graduate men.
- Notably, the Periodic Labour Force Survey is the first annual household survey of the National Sample Survey Office. Its data was collected between July 2017 and June 2018. The 19 major states that were surveyed by NSSO were Haryana, Assam, Jharkhand, Kerala, Odisha, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.
- According to the report, Kerala has the highest unemployment rate at 11.4 per cent, followed by Haryana with 8.6 per cent. Meanwhile, Chhattisgarh logged the lowest unemployment rate at 3.3 per cent in 2017-18, followed by Madhya Pradesh at 4.5 per cent.
- Forensic help for India’s pharma industry
- India’s $17 billion-plus pharmaceutical industry relies heavily on exports of generic medicines globally and USA is an important destination for many drug manufacturers.
- Thus, when the manufacturers get Form 483 from US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA), signifying ‘objectionable conditions,’ it becomes a matter of concern for the manufacturer – not only the batch becomes non-compliant for exports but also the firm has to launch a probe to rectify the objection.
- NDDB to take Gujarat dairy model to UP and Bihar
- The National Dairy Development Board(NDDB) is set to take the Gujarat dairy cooperative model to Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. The project was part of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed between Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the government of India in December 2018, to improve dairy output in these states. NDDB was named the executing agency of the project.
- While the project aims to ultimately covering all districts in these states, NDDB has initially identified 53 districts — 31 in UP and 22 in Bihar.
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