Governance

Chhattisgarh State presented their Annual Action Plan for 2020-21 for consideration and approval of Ministry of Jal Shakti. Significantly, Jal Jeevan Mission launched under the Ministry of Jal Shakti is aimed to provide adequate potable drinking water of prescribed quality on regular and long-term basis to every rural household of the country by the 2024. A budget of whopping Rs 3.60 lakh Crore has been allocated for this scheme.

In line with the announcement made in the Union Budget, Union Minister for Finance & Corporate Affairs Ms Nirmala Sitharaman formally launched the facility for instant allotment of PAN (on near to real time basis) here today. This facility is now available for those PAN applicants who possess a valid Aadhaar number and have a mobile number registered with Aadhaar. The allotment process is paperless and an electronic PAN (e-PAN) is issued to the applicants free of cost.

On the occasion of the first anniversary of the second tenure of the government, the Union Minister for Electronics and IT, Law and Justice and Communications Ravi Shankar Prasad launched India’s national Artificial Intelligence Portal called www.ai.gov.in

Indian Railways has distributed more than 85 lakh free meals and about 1.25 crore free water bottles to migrants travelling in Shramik Special Trains since 1st May 2020. This includes meals being prepared by Indian Railways’ PSU IRCTC and distributed by Zonal Railways. Food and water bottles are being provided to travelling migrants inall Shramik Special Trains.

Under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana (PM-GKY) about 4.57 Lakh MT of pulses have been dispatched to the States/UTs. Out of this, 1.78 Lakh MT pulses have been distributed to 1340.61 Lakh beneficiaries in the States/UTs.

Setu have been transparency, privacy and security and in line with India’s policy on Open Source Software, the source code of Aarogya Setu has now been made open source. The source code for the Android version of the application is available for review and collaboration at https://github.com/nic-delhi/AarogyaSetu_Android.git.The iOS version of the application will be released as open source within the next two weeks and the server code will be released subsequently. Almost 98% of Aarogya Setu Users are on Android platform.

Three weeks after barring travel to and from India by Overseas Citizens of India (OCI) card holders due to covid lockdown, India has extended the deadline for reissue of OCI cards till Dec 31.

In a very encouraging endorsement of the success of Digital India programmed initiated by the Government led by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, the Secretary General of the Commonwealth Ms. Patricia Scotland has expressed her appreciation for this initiative and has called it as a new hope for other developing and aspiring countries of the Commonwealth.

Millions of people depend on oceans for their livelihood and food source. At the same time, the quality of marine resources has to be at safe levels for their continued use. The challenge to keep the marine resources safe comes from undeterred pollution levels. Marine pollution includes different emerging contaminants such as endocrine disrupters, oil spills, wastewater discharges, marine debris and dredging. They cause adverse biological effects, which include human physical disturbances on marine ecosystems and habitats.