GUJARAT
Rajkot to house first school devoted to sports
Soon, a model school for children will come up focusing especially on all kinds of sports
curriculum. With an estimated cost of Rs 23 crore, Rajkot Municipal Corporation (RMC) has
allotted tenders for this school which it expects to complete in a year’s time and commence
from 2022 academic year.
Various sport facilities that have been planned for the school include cricket field, athletic
track, football ground, volleyball court, tennis court, basketball ground, kabaddi ground
among others. There will be indoor games available in this school too.
Bhagwatipara area also has more than 2,000 new houses are coming up under Awas Yojna
while an equal number of private affordable houses too are on the anvil.
INTERNATIONAL
GoI and NDB Signs Agreement for USD 500 Million
The New Development Bank (NDB), headquartered in Shanghai, has approved a US$500
million loan fund for the Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut Regional Rapid Transit System (RRTS)
project to further improve the public transport system and ease the national capital area.
Crowding took a step forward. The Ministry of Urban Affairs, the Ministry of Finance, the
National Capital Region Transportation Corporation (NCRTC) and multilateral banks signed
loan agreements.
These funds will be used to finance rolling stock, signalling systems, operating structures,
operating personnel's residences, train control and telecommunications systems.
The loan term of the China Development Bank is 25 years and the grace period is 8 years.
The lack of effective public transportation options and the rapid increase in vehicle traffic
have made the National Capital Region one of the most polluted areas in the world.
The Ministry of Finance stated that by 2030, NCR is expected to become the most populous
urban area in the world, which will increase the pressure on housing, water supply,
electricity and transportation facilities.
Funds from the New Development Bank will also be used to purchase signal,
telecommunications and train control systems with advanced functions, such as automatic
train operation, automatic train protection, automatic train supervision and integration with
platform screen doors.
The project can serve as a demonstration of the development of high-capacity rapid urban
transport corridors in other urban areas of India.
India ranked 77th In Global Bribery Risk Matrix Of TRACE
In 2019, India ranked 78th with 48 points. By 2020, India will perform better than China,
Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal. Bhutan is the only neighbour who ranked higher than India.
Bhutan is ranked 48th.
The ranking is prepared by TRACE International. It is the world's leading anti-bribery
standard-setting organization. The TRACE Bribery Risk Matrix (2020) measures bribery in
194 jurisdictions.
The jurisdictions are ranked based on scores. The score is calculated based on four
parameters. They are the transparency of the government and the civil service system,
business dealings with the government, the ability of civil society to monitor, and the
deterrence and law enforcement capabilities of anti-bribery.
Although jurisdictions are weighed based on these four parameters, their role must also be
considered when scoring the media. When a country gets the highest score, it means that
the country is at higher risk of commercial bribery. The smaller the score, the less bribery
the country has.
India's overall score is 45. In the field of interaction with the government, India scored 50
points. In the field of anti-bribery deterrence and law enforcement, India scored 53 points.
Denmark tops the list, followed by Norway, Finland, Sweden and New Zealand. At the
bottom are North Korea, Turkmenistan, South Sudan, Venezuela and Eritrea.
Global Prevention Coalition (GPC) for HIV Prevention
In October 2017, the Global HIV Prevention Coalition (GPC) was established to strengthen
and maintain a political commitment to primary prevention by setting a common agenda
among UN member states, donors, civil society organizations and implementers.
GPC takes the country and the community as the centre, and strives to ensure the
responsibility of providing prevention services on a large scale to achieve the goals of the
2016 Political Declaration to End AIDS, including reducing the HIV infection rate by 75% and
reducing the number of infections to less than 500,000 by 2020, and end the AIDS epidemic
in 2030.
GPC is supported by UNAIDS.
NATIONAL
Getting MGNREGS Wages Harder than the Labour
According to a study by the Indian company LibTech, many workers are forced to go to the
bank multiple times, increasing travel costs and loss of income, and face the trouble of
repeated refusal to pay, biometric errors and misinformation, just to make their own wages.
The study found that almost 40% of workers must go to bank branches multiple times to
withdraw money.
The branch is usually located at the block headquarters, far from home. The time at the
bank is three to four hours. Workers also lose their wages when they try to withdraw
money.
This effectively solves the situation where one-third of the weekly salary is spent.
Studies have also found that only one in ten workers will receive a text message stating that
their wages have been recorded. One-third of workers must visit bank branches to find out
whether their wages have been credited.
It was also discovered that although they were told that the salary was credited, they found
that the money was not credited to the account.
The challenge of the last mile makes it difficult for workers to get their wages in time.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, this situation has worsened as transportation has become
more difficult.
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.
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