KERALA
World Bank-funded waste management project: Preparatory activities to cost Rs 1.13 crore
The state government, which had approved engaging a project-management consultant for World Bank-funded Kerala solid waste management project at Rs 120 crore, has now set aside Rs 1.13 crore for project-preparation activities.
A major component of project preparation to avail the World Bank share will go into payment of salary to the staff — Rs 91.8 lakh. While the government is promoting virtual meetings in times of Covid-19, Rs 6 lakh has been set aside as meeting expenses on project preparation.
During the five fiscals, the state received Rs 97 crore as allocation from the Centre under SBM (urban). The total expenditure of this allocated sum from the Centre from 2015-16 to 2019-20 was Rs 50.21 crore, leaving an unspent balance of Rs 46.96 crore.
The service delivery gap assessment carried out as part of the project pinpointed glitches in the existing system. It noted that majority of urban local bodies did not comply with solid-waste management rules by not providing door-to-door collection services and processing of biodegradable waste at city and regional levels.
INTERNATIONAL
India, Myanmar agree to operationalise Sittwe port in first quarter of 2021
India and Myanmar have agreed to work towards the operationalisation of the Sittwe port in the Rakhine state in the first quarter of 2021.
The announcement came after the conclusion of the two day long visit of Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General M M Naravane and Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla to Myanmar on 4-5 October.
Both sides agreed to further strengthen their partnership in connectivity projects, capacity building, power and energy.
India announced a grant of USD 2 million for the construction of the border haat bridge at Byanyu/Sarsichauk in Chin State that will provide increased economic connectivity between Mizoram and Myanmar.
NATIONAL
Puducherry airport becomes AAI’s first 100% solar-powered airport
The Puducherry airport has become the first airport of the Airports Authority of India (AAI) which is entirely solar-powered.
The 500KWp ground-mounted solar power plant was commissioned on 2nd October 2020.
The approx cost of the plant is Rs 2.8 crore. With becoming absolutely power-neutral, the Puducherry airport will be able to meet its entire power requirement through the solar power plant.
MoHUA enters into MoU with Swiggy to take street food vendors online under PM SVANIDHI scheme
The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs has entered into an MoU with Swiggy, one of the leading food delivery platforms, to onboard street food vendors on its e-commerce platform.
The MoU aims at giving the street food vendors online access to thousands of consumers and help them grow their businesses.
The arrangement has been facilitated under the Prime Minister Street Vendor’s AtmaNibhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi) Scheme.
The Ministry and Swiggy will run a pilot programme by on-boarding 250 vendors across five cities namely – Ahmedabad, Chennai, Delhi, Indore, and Varanasi.
The street vendors will be helped with PAN and FSSAI registration, training on technology, menu digitization and pricing along with hygiene and packaging best practices.
Centre claims better enforcement as Pocso cases rise 19% in 2019
While crimes against children registered a 4.5% increase last year as compared to 2018, there was a 18.9% rise in cases filed under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) over this period.
Of the 1.48 lakh crimes against children reported in 2019, 46.6% related to kidnapping and abduction, 31.9% to POCSO Act, 3.3% dealt with rape and 2.9% were cases of assault against women with intent to outrage her modesty. Cases dealing with heinous crimes like murder declined by 5.9% as compared to 2018.
Maharashtra accounted for 13.2% of the total crimes against children reported in 2019, followed by Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh whose share was 12.8% each. Delhi had the second highest rate of crime against children (cases per lakh population) at 139.
According to NCRB report on ‘Crime in India — 2019’, the 18.9% rise in 2018 in cases registered under POCSO Act, last amended in mid-2019 to provide for death row penalty for aggravated sexual assault and add tougher provisions against child pornography, was however less than the 22% increase in 2018 over 2017.
At 66%, Andhra’s literacy rate worst, Delhi’s 2nd best at 89%
Andhra Pradesh’s rate of 66.4% is the worst among all states in India and significantly lower than Bihar’s 70.9%. Similarly, Telangana’s 72.8% is well below the national average of 77.7% while Assam is well above it at 85.9% and Karnataka’s 77.2% pales in comparison to Uttarakhand’s 87.6%, which is bettered only by Kerala and Delhi among the major states and UTs.
The data is for 2017-18 and is for all aged 7 or more. Not all preconceptions are wrong though. Kerala remains by some distance, the best among the major states with a literacy rate of 96.2%. More impressively, the gap between male and female literacy is the smallest in Kerala at just 2.2 percentage points. To put that in context, the gap at the all-India level is 14.4 percentage points with male literacy at 84.7% and female literacy at 70.3%.
(91.7% versus 53.7%). Male urban literacy is under 90% in only four major states and below 85% in none of them.
In contrast, rural female literacy is above 80% only in Kerala and below 70% in 13 of the 22 major states. In four of these, it is below 60%.
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