Published on: September 28, 2022

Snippets – 28 September 2022

Snippets – 28 September 2022

  • The High Court of Karnataka has said that the Karnataka State Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes has no power in law to issue direction to the State government to withhold the grants to educational institutions. The Karnataka State Commission for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes act 2002, provides for,

  • The constitution of State Commission, and the terms of office and conditions of service of the chair person and other members.
  • The powers and functions of the commission.
  • Manner of maintaining account of the commission and the audit of such accounts.
  • The State Health Department is contemplating extending the Karnataka Brain Health Initiative (Ka-BHI) to all districts. Recognising the need to improve treatment and prevent neurological disorders in the community, the Health Department in association with NIMHANS and Niti Aayog launched Ka-BHI in January. NIMHANS has trained 100 doctors at the PHC level for brain health clinics in Bengaluru South, Kolar and Chickballapur districts, which were chosen for the pilot project.
  • The Union Cabinet approved modifications in the scheme for development of the semiconductor and display manufacturing ecosystem, with a uniform fiscal support of 50% project cost for all technology nodes for setting up of semiconductor fabrication units. Given the niche technology and nature of compound semiconductors and advanced packaging, the modified programme will also provide fiscal support of 50% of Capital Expenditure in pari-passu mode for setting up of compound semiconductors / silicon photonics / sensors / Discrete semiconductors fabs and ATMP/OSAT [Assembly Testing Marking and Packaging/ Outsourced Assembly and Test.
  • The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) notified the rules governing The Criminal Procedure (Identification) Act, 2022. The Act was passed in March by the Parliament. Until rules are notified, an Act cannot be implemented or come into force. The legislation would enable police and central investigating agencies to collect, store and analyse physical and biological samples including retina and iris scan of arrested persons.
  • The Election Commission of India’s (ECI’s) ongoing drive to clean up the electoral space has now gone “beyond RUPPs” (registered unrecognised political parties) to cover recognised national and State parties. The EC has delisted or declared as inactive 537 registered unrecognised political parties since May for failing to comply with various rules and misusing the Income Tax exemption given to them.
  • The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India has issued a draft notification on front-of-package labelling, which proposes “Indian Nutrition Rating” (INR) modelled on the health star-rating system. The draft of the amended Food Safety and Standards (Labelling & Display) Regulations, 2020 made public requires packaged food to display the prescribed format of INR by assigning a rating from 1/2 star (least healthy) to five stars (healthiest).
  • The Union Cabinet approved the National Logistics Policy which aims to reduce the cost of logistics and bring efficiency by “streamlining processes, regulatory framework and skill development.” Logistics broadly includes facilities crucial to trade: transport services for the movement of goods, storage facilities that are particularly essential for trade in perishable goods such as food items, fruits, and vegetables, and smooth functioning of government services that facilitate trade such as licensing and customs
  • Wipro Ltd. has sacked some 300 employees for ‘moonlighting’ as the IT services firm toughens its stand against staffers taking a second job after work hours. Moonlighting refers to a side job in addition to one’s primary employment. In moonlighting, often such side jobs are taken by employees in secret, without informing the employer.
  • The Mumbai Police have ordered the prohibition of cattle transportation in the city to prevent the spread of the lumpy skin disease. This means cattle cannot be moved out of the place they are being raised or transported to marketplaces. Lumpy skin disease is caused by the lumpy skin disease virus (LSDV), which belongs to the genus capripoxvirus, a part of the poxviridae family (smallpox and monkeypox viruses are also a part of the same family).
  • The government expenditure in India on early childhood education (ECE) for children between the age of three years and six years is a mere 0.1% of the GDP, and the average spend per child of ₹8,297 per annum is at least a fourth of desired levels, according to a new study.
  • InSight detected seismic and acoustic waves from the impact of four meteorites and calculated the location of the craters they left. The space rocks InSight tracked – one landing in 2020 and the other three in 2021 – were relatively modest in size, estimated to weigh up to about 440 pounds (200 kg), with diameters of up to about 20 inches (50 cm) and leaving craters of up to about 24 feet (7.2 meters) wide. They landed between 53 miles (85 km) and 180 miles (290 km) from InSight’s location. One exploded into at least three pieces that each gouged their own craters.
  • The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said, that it has successfully demonstrated a hybrid propulsion system that uses a solid fuel and liquid oxidiser. The hybrid motor was tested at the ISRO Propulsion Complex (IPRC), Mahendragiri. The hybrid system is more efficient, ”greener” and safer to handle and paves the way for new propulsion technologies for future missions, the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) which tested it with support from the Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre (LPSC).
  • The Union Home Ministry has discontinued three police awards instituted in 2018 by then Home Minister Rajnath Singh. The three awards were given to the Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) personnel, State police, Intelligence Bureau officials and home guards for exemplary work in internal security duty and investigation of criminal cases. the “Police Antrik Suraksha Seva Padak” for police personnel deployed in Jammu and Kashmir, Left Wing Extremism-affected areas and North East region, instituted on July 23, 2018The “Utkrisht Seva Padak” and the “Ati Utkrisht Seva Padak” instituted on July 23,2018 for “permanent police personnel and other permanent support staff working in CAPFs, State/Union Territory(UT) Police Forces, Central Police Organizations(CPOs), Assam Rifles, National Security Guards, Intelligence organisations of the Central Government/State/UT/CAPF, Home Guards and any other armed Police Force of the Union throughout the Indian Union, stands discontinued
  • In a first, both the Army and Air Force Day parades are set to move out of the national capital region. While Air Force Day parade on October 8 will be held in Chandigarh, the Army Day parade on January 15, 2023, is scheduled to be held in the Southern Command area
  • The Central government appointed veteran industrialist Ratan Tata, former Supreme Court judge K.T. Thomas, and former Deputy Lok Sabha Speaker Kariya Munda as trustees of the PM CARES Fund, the Trust further decided to nominate other eminent persons for the constitution of Advisory Board to the PM CARES Fund. These eminent personalities included Rajiv Mehrishi, former Comptroller and Auditor General of India, Sudha Murthy, former Chairperson, Infosys Foundation, and Anand Shah, Co-founder of Teach for India and former CEO of Indicorps and Piramal Foundation The PM CARES Fund, set up to deal with emergencies such as the Covid pandemic, saw its corpus grow nearly three-fold to ₹10,990 crore in the 2020-21 fiscal, while the disbursal rose to ₹3,976 crore, according to the latest audited statement. The disbursal included ₹1,000 crore for migrant welfare and over ₹1,392 crore for procurement of Covid vaccine doses. The fund was set up as a public charitable trust “keeping in mind the need for having a dedicated national fund with the primary objective of dealing with any kind of emergency or distress situation, like posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, and to provide relief to the affected”.
  • Top officials of India and Nepal began a three-day meeting to discuss the issues related to the long-awaited Pancheshwar Multipurpose Project and other bilateral issues related to water resources. The Mahakali River basin, upstream from the proposed Pancheshwar High Dam site has drainage area of 12,100 Km2. PMP has been identified as a huge storage scheme to be developed so as to maximize peak power benefit in the order of 6,720 MW (Pancheshwar High Dam-6480 MW and Rupali Gad Re-regulating Dam-240 MW) with an annual average energy production of 12,333 GWh.
  • The Film Federation of India has chosen Pan Nalin’s semi-autobiographical Gujarati drama Chhello Show ( Last Film Show) as India’s official entry for the 95 th Academy Awards in the Best International Feature Film Category. •  This is the second time after The Good Road in 2013 that a Gujarati film has made the cut for the prestigious awards. Last year, the Tamil drama Koozhangal (Pebbles), directed by filmmaker Vinothraj PS, was India’s official entry at the Oscars but didn’t make the shortlist. The last Indian film that made it to the final five was Ashutosh Gowarikar’s  Lagaan in 2001.

  • Award-winning filmmaker Vinay Shukla’s feature length documentary, While We Watched, has won the Amplify Voices Award at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF-2022). Titled Namaskar! Main Ravish Kumar in Hindi, the “turbulent newsroom drama” chronicles the working days of broadcast journalist Ravish Kumar, as he “navigates a spiraling world of truth and disinformation The 94-minute documentary is a U.K. production, and is produced by LONO Studio and BRITDOC Films. It received a standing ovation at the screening in Toronto.