e-vehicle
- State-owned Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) has set up ‘India’s first e-vehicle charging unit’ in Nagpur.
- Nagpur is the first city to introduce Electric Public Transportation Model in India.
FAME India
- The government has recently invited proposals from cities with population of above 10 lakh for extending grants under the FAME scheme.
- FAME – Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric and Hybrid Vehicles in India
- It is a scheme to promote large-scale adoption of Electric vehicles in multi-modal public transport.
- The scheme has 4 focus areas i.e. Technology development, Demand Creation, Pilot Projects and Charging Infrastructure.
- It is aimed at incentivising all vehicle segments i.e. 2 Wheeler, 3 Wheeler Auto, Passenger 4 Wheeler Vehicle, Light Commercial Vehicles and Buses.
World Economic Outlook
- The report “World Economic Outlook” is being published by International Monetary Fund (IMF).
- It ranks over 200 countries in terms of per capita GDP based on Purchasing Power Parity (PPP).
- In this year ranking, India has moved up one position to 126 in terms of GDP per capita.
- It is still ranked lower than all its BRICS peers.
- Qatar remains the world’s richest as per the IMF data.
- PPP – It is the rate at which the currency of one country needs to be converted into that of a second country.
- It is used worldwide to compare the income levels in different countries.
- It is to ensure that the expenditure on a similar commodity must be same in both currencies when accounted for exchange rate.
PowerTex India Scheme
- It is a three-year comprehensive scheme for powerloom sector development.
- It comprises several schemes of textile ministry such as In-situ Upgradation of Plain Powerlooms, Group Workshed Scheme (GWS), Yarn Bank Scheme, Pradhan Mantri Credit Scheme for Powerloom Weavers etc.
- It also includes Grant-in-Aid and Modernisation & Upgradation of Powerloom Service Centres (PSCs).
- The textile ministry has recently recommended an increase in capital subsidy for the powerloom sector from 10% to 30%.
- It has also sought additional funds to be disbursed to powerloom weavers.
Deformed Amphibians
- Scientists have been witnessing frogs with deformities in Western Ghats.
- Missing eyes, deformed hind legs, missing limbs, extra limbs, partial limbs, limbs that are bent or bony, and abnormally thin or weak limbs are some of the reported frog abnormalities.
- The reason behind this is suspected to be symptomatic of underlying toxicity in the environment and the food chain.
- Many amphibians breed in the shallow waters of paddy fields and pesticide applications also coincide with the breeding periods of frogs.
- These chemicals ultimately reach the soil and move into the water system where the larval stage (tadpoles) of the frog develops leading to deformities.
Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Gramin)
- The scheme was launched last year with the target of completing one crore new houses by March, 2019.
- It aims at helping rural people below the poverty-line (BPL) in construction of dwelling units and upgradation of existing unserviceable kutcha houses by providing assistance in the form of full grant.
- It involves local construction material, use of technology through rural mason training, geo-tagging of assets and payment directly into the account of beneficiary through IT-DBT platform.
- Socio-Economic Caste Census 2011 is used to identify the beneficiary.
- It is only the homeless and those living in one kuccha room with kuccha roof or two kuccha rooms with kuccha roof are the beneficiaries.
- An allowance of Rs. 120,000 in plain areas and Rs. 130,000 in hilly areas will be provided for construction of homes.
Source: The Hindu, PIB
0 comments:
Post a Comment