GUJARAT
- Only 44% tribals given right to cultivation in 10 years
- Some 10 years after the implementation of Forest Rights Act-2006, only 44% tribal farmers have got the right to cultivation as of 2017.
- The state government has given only cultivation rights — that too on a small portion of land — to tribal farmers. Tribal farmers hailing from Dahod, Panchmahal, Banaskantha and Aravalli districts, among others, were present.
- Citing the website of the tribal department of Gujarat government, Prof Hemant Shah, a representative of Eklavya Sangathan, said, “Some 1.82 lakh individual claims were filed in Gujarat, of which only 81,178 have been approved by the government as on November 30, 2017.”
- Some of the tribal farmers also alleged that their claims have been approved in a way that a piece of land is allocated to a bunch of farmers and not individual ownership.
INTERNATIONAL
- Government nominates J S Rajput as Representative to the Board of UNESCO
- The Government of India has decided to nominate Professor J S Rajput, former Director NCERT, as India’s representative to the Executive Board (EXB) of UNESCO.
- Professor J S Rajput is an eminent educationist with rich experience in various fields including UNESCO.
- The EXB has a four-year term of office and 58 seats.
- The executive board is one of the constitutional organs of UNESCO and is elected by the General Conference.
· India U-16 Win Hong Kong Football Tournament
- The India U-16 team emerged champions in the Jockey Cup International Youth Invitational Football Tournamentwith a victory over Hong Kong U-17 in the final in Hong Kong.
- The tournament was a U-17 event where India fielded their U-16 National Team.
- This was the team’s third consecutive victory in as many days. The team was coached by Bibiano Fernandes.
· SWIFT Introduces Universal Real-Time Payment Tracking
- SWIFTannounces the extension of its GPI Tracker to cover all payment instructions sent across the network, enabling GPI banks to track all their SWIFT payment instructions at all times, and giving them full visibility over all their payments activity.
- The Tracker, which has been available since May 2017, enables banks that have signed up to the service to track their GPI payments in real-time.
NATIONAL
- West Bengal tops the list of states with most number of beggars
- The government has come out with the total number of beggars in the country. As per the data released by Union ministry of Social Justice, there are around 4 lakh beggars in total.
- The highest number of beggars, 81,000, are in West Bengal.
- West Bengal is followed by Uttar Pradesh and Bihar at number two and three respectively.
- Lakshadweep, a union territory, has only two people begging for their livelihood.
- UIDAI set to introduce face authentication feature from July 1
- The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) is all set to make face authentication available alongside iris or fingerprint scan as means of verifying Aadhaar users from July 1, 2018.
- The UIDAI, which is in-charge of the 12-digit identifier Aadhaar, in January had announced that it will introduce face authentication feature to help those who run into problems in biometric authentication due to old age, hardwork or worn-out fingerprints.
· Asias Largest Tulip Garden In Srinagar Opens For Visitors
- Indira Gandhi Memorial Tulip Garden was opened for visitors in Srinagar, Jammu & Kashmir.
- It is recognized as the Asia’s largest tulip garden.
- This year, 12.5 lakh tulip bulbs of 48 varieties were sown in the garden by the floriculture department.
- Apart from the tulips, 40,000 hyacinth bulbs have also been planted.
- 5th India Maize Summit 2018
- Maize production in India has seen a boom in recent years which has been possible due to increase in area as well as productivity.
- This was stated by the Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Shri Radha Mohan Singh at the inaugural event of the 5th India Maize Summit 2018 at FICCI, New Delhi.
- Delivering the inaugural address, Shri Singh said that during 1950-51, India produced only 1.73 MT, which has reached 25.89 MT in 2016-17 and is expected to cross 27 MT in 2017-18.
- The average productivity in India is 2.43 ton/ha.
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