KERALA
Kerala: Cell to monitor progress of tourism projects
With poll announcement expected in the first week of March 2021, the government is in a hurry to showcase its achievements before the public. Now, tourism department has appointed 17 project engineers for monitoring its projects worth Rs 314 crore.
The project monitoring cell will have one project engineer in each district in addition to two project engineers and one technical assistant at tourism headquarters. The expenses for their appointment is estimated at Rs 1.41 crore and it includes remuneration, vehicle expenses, procuring technical devices etc.
The cell is being constituted for carrying out day-to-day updation of project monitoring system, the chief minister’s office portal, progress verification of state and central projects.
The department has schemes worth Rs 320.14 crore in the current financial year. While tourism directorate implements projects worth Rs 307.11 crore, the rest of the plan allocation is shared between KTDC (Rs 9 cr), Bekal Resorts Development Corporation (Rs 2.5 cr) and KTIL (Rs 1.53 cr). Till Aug 31, the expenditure by the department stood at Rs 122.60 crore (38.6% of plan allocation), which is much better than the departmental average (19.71% for 53 departments).
INTERNATIONAL
12th BRICS Summit to be held virtually on November 17
The 12th BRICS Summit will be held on 17th November 2020 via video conference.
The theme of the Meeting of the Leaders of BRICS countries which includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa is “BRICS Partnership for Global Stability, Shared Security and Innovative Growth”.
The Summit this year is being held under the Chairmanship of Russia and aims at a multifaceted cooperation between the member countries.
The five member countries have continued close strategic partnership on all the three major pillars of peace and security, economy and finance, cultural and people-to-people exchanges.
World Cotton Day: 07 October
The WHO-recognised World Cotton Day (WCD) is observed on 7th October since 2019 to celebrate the international cotton industry and its contribution to communities and the global economy.
The day was inaugurated by the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva on October 7, 2019.
WCD Day was initiated by the Group of Cotton-4 countries namely Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mali to reflect the importance of cotton as a global commodity.
Union Cabinet approves signing of Memorandum of cooperation in field of cyber-security between India & Japan
The cabinet gave its approval for signing a Memorandum of Cooperation (MoC) in the field of cyber-security between India and Japan.
The MoC will enhance cooperation in areas of mutual interest, which includes capacity building in the area of cyberspace, protection of critical infrastructure, cooperation in emerging technologies, sharing information on cyber security threats and malicious cyber activities.
The Cabinet also approved the ratification of seven chemicals listed under Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs).
The Stockholm Convention is a global treaty to protect human health and environment from POPs, which are identified chemical substances that persist in the environment, bio-accumulate in living organisms, adversely affect human health and have the property of long-range environmental transport.
NATIONAL
Centre to urgently release Rs. 20,000 crore as compensation to States for revenue losses
The Centre will urgently disburse nearly 20 thousand crore rupees among the states from the amount collected as compensation cess this year.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman made the announcement after the 42nd GST Council meet.
The Centre will also disburse Rs. 25 thousand crore towards Integrated GST for 2017-18 to those states that received less amount due to the anomalies.
Also from starting from 1st January next year, taxpayers with less than Rs. 5 crore annual turnover will not be required to file monthly GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B returns.
C-DAC to commission India’s fastest Supercomputer ‘PARAM Siddhi – AI’
The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) will be commissioning India’s largest HPC-AI supercomputer ‘PARAM Siddhi – AI’.
This initiative will place India among the top countries in global AI supercomputing research and innovation.
The initiative was headed by Abhishek Das, Scientist and Program Director (HPC-AI Infrastructure Development) at C-DAC, who conceived the idea and designed the architecture for the largest HPC-AI infrastructure in India.
This high-performance computing-Artificial Intelligence (HPC-AI) supercomputer is a machine with 210 AI Petaflops (6.5 Petaflops Peak DP).
Government launches API integration between PM SVANidhi Portal and SBI eMudra Portal
The Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs will integrate the application programming interface (API) between SVANidhi portal and various banks to expedite loan sanctioning and disbursement process under Modi government’s PM SVANidhi scheme for nano entrepreneurs.
To begin with, the ministry launched the API integration between the PM SVANidhi portal and SBI’s eMudra portal.
This integration will facilitate seamless flow of data between the PM SVANidhi Portal and SBI’s eMudra Portal in a secure environment.
It will expedite the loan sanctioning and disbursement process, to benefit the street vendors seeking a working capital loan under the Scheme.
Ministry would perform similar integration with other banks as well for which a consultative meeting will be held shortly.
Govt to launch e-mart for artisans, digital monitoring for ‘Van Dhan start-ups’
With the pandemic leaving many without work, the government is all set to launch an e-marketplace by July end to host around 5000 tribal artisans to begin with. The government sees this e-mart as a way to create an independent online space of artisans to put out their products that have been wasting away in the absence of buyers.
The government commissioned on trial a website that will give all details, statistics and real-time information of the VDVKs and also enable GPS linkages to connect those executing the activities in the villages to those monitoring the scheme in the states and in the central government. After the trial run till June 30, a formal launch is expected.