GUJARAT
· MHA Shah flags off India’s first battery-operated bus in Ahmedabad
ð The main aim is to curb pollution and make India a better place. Union Minister Amit Shah flagged off battery-operated eco-friendly buses in Gujarat’s Ahmedabad while inaugurating the country’s first automated battery charging and swapping station for e-buses there.
ð He participated in the tree plantation drive organised by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation to mark the culmination of the civic body’s 3 month-long campaign Mission Million Tree to plant 10 lakh trees in Ahmedabad.
ð The campaign was launched with an aim to make Ahmedabad the greenest city of India and it will continue till this goal is achieved. Later in the day, Shah, who represents Gandhinagar Lok Sabha seat, will attend a meeting of ‘Disha’, formerly known as District Development Coordination and Monitoring Committee.
ð Disha initiative is meant for the effective implementation of Central schemes at the local level. He probably is slated to conclude his visit after attending the 7th Convocation ceremony of the Gandhinagar based Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University.
INTERNATIONAL
- Switzerland to share bank account information with India
- Banking details of Indians with accounts in Switzerland will be available to tax authorities here from Sunday as the automatic exchange of information regime kicks off between the two countries.
- The first automatic exchange of financial account information (AEOI) under the provisions common reporting standard will start from September.
- India will receive information of the calendar year 2018 in respect of all financial accounts held by Indian residents in Switzerland.
NATIONAL
- National Sports Day: 29 August
- National Sports Day is celebrated in India on August 29.
- It is celebrated to mark the birth anniversary of Major Dhyan Chand, a legendary Indian hockey player, who was also born on this day in 1905.
- This auspicious day is celebrated across the country to create and spread awareness about the importance of sports in everyone’s life.
- On this occasion, PM Modi also launched the ‘Fit India Movement’ at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium, New Delhi.
· Kerala tops in India’s Child well-being Index Report
- Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Himachal Pradesh and Puducherry topped the charts in the child well-being index, a tool designed to measure and tracks children’s well-being comprehensively. Meghalaya, Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh featured at the bottom, as per a report released by the non government organisation World Vision India and research institute IFMR LEAD.
- The dimensions of the index include 3 dimensions ( healthy individual development, positive relationships and protective contexts) & 24 indicators.
- One of the primary objectives of this index is to garner attention to the under-researched theme of child well-being in India, and inspire further academic and policy conversations on related issues. Some of the key indicators that need to be studied in the future include mobile usage, digital access, financial literacy, mental health and quality of relationships per se, between parents/peers and children.
- Cabinet clears Rs 6,268 crore sugar export subsidy
- The government announced a Rs 6,268 crore subsidy for export of 6 million tonnes of sugar during the 2019-20 marketing year starting October in order to liquidate surplus domestic stock and help mills in clearing huge sugarcanearrears to farmers.
- The decision was taken at a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
- A lump sum export subsidy of Rs 10,448 per tonne will be given to sugar mills in the 2019-20 marketing year (October-September), costing the exchequer Rs 6,268 crore as subsidy.
- This will benefit millions of farmers in Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtraand Karnataka as well as other states.
- The government is providing subsidy for export of 5 million tonnes of sugar for the current 2018-19 marketing year.
- States get over Rs 47,000 crore to increase forest cover, 5 states together corner more than half of the fund
- A year after notifying rules for disbursement of fund from a special kitty for increasing green cover in the country, the Centre released Rs 47,436 crore to 27 states with top five states – Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and Maharashtra – together getting more than half of it.
- The fund – a kitty of nearly Rs 55,000 crore – was an accumulated amount of money which user agencies had been depositing as compensation for diverting forest land for non-forest purposes such as industries, mining and infrastructure for years. The quantum of amount to states, in fact, show the extent of diversion of forest land in these states for development activities.
- States were allocated the amount from the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA), an ad hoc body which was set up in 2001 under the Supreme Court order for managing the compensatory afforestation fund.
- The states will use this compensatory afforestation amount for plantations, assisted natural regeneration of forests, forest fire prevention, pest and disease control in forest, soil and moisture conservation works, catchment area treatment and improvement of wildlife habitat among others in the list of 24 permissible activities.
- NDCs (Nationally Determined Contributions) are climate action plan of India under the Paris Agreement on climate change. As per its 2015 commitment under the Agreement, India is expected to create an additional carbon sink equivalent to 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide by the year 2030.
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