Focus Merit

Category: State Wise Current Affairs

Uttarakhand – 1st state to implement agricultural land leasing policy

January 23, 2020

Uttarakhand  has become the first state in the country where the government has made a policy to lease agricultural land. In lieu of giving land on a 30-year lease, the concerned farmer will get the rent for the land.

In the hilly areas of the state, the obstacles of leasing land for farming, agriculture, horticulture, herbs, off-season vegetables, milk production, tea plantation, fruit hybridization and solar energy has been removed with this step.

There is a provision to take more land in special circumstances. If there is government land around farm land, then it can be leased by paying the fee with the permission of the District Magistrate. The state government has made this policy in the wake of difficulties in the consolidation of land.

13th Jaipur Literature Festival to begin

January 23, 2020

13th Jaipur Literature Festival will be held from 23th to 27th January. The themes of the festival include climate, constitution, poetry, and artificial intelligence. The five-day event will see more than 200 sessions. Around 500 speakers of different fields are expected to participate in the festival, out of which 120 are award-winning speakers.

The festival will have a range of speakers including Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee, Booker award-winning British novelist Howard Jacobson and Auther Elizabeth Gilbert. 37 sessions will be held on the first day, which includes speakers such as Nandita Das, Subha Mudgal and Prasoon Joshi among others.

Odisha’s 44 underprivileged children to get their 1st flight experience

January 22, 2020

44 Divyang children from Odisha will experience the joy of flying aboard in a special Alliance Air flight from Biju Patnaik International Airport in Bhubaneswar. The children includes 21 girls and 23 boys coming from poor families, who will get this opportunity. It will be a 40 minute tour and the special flight will take off at 9:30 am.

The initiative is a result of joint collaboration of Ministry of Civil Aviation, Airport Authority of India (AAI) and Alliance Air with Government of Odisha. The AAI has waived all the cost of flying and Odisha Government has extended full support to this initiative.

IIM Indore to provide training to Uttar Pradesh Police

January 22, 2020

The Indian Institute of Management Indore in Madhya Pradesh will teach lessons on crowd management and effective communication to Uttar Pradesh police. A memorandum of understanding for this project was signed by UP Director General of Police OP Singh and IIM Indore Director Professor Himanshu Rai in Lucknow on Tuesday.

Under the agreement, police will be trained in traffic management, data analysis, use of artificial intelligence, social media management among other aspects. The MoU comes at time when UP, as well as other states, are seeing protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act, several of which have turned violent.

Hyderabad Metro partners with redBus to start carpool services

January 22, 2020

To strengthen its last mile connectivity project, Hyderabad Metro Rail Limited starts carpool service for train passengers in partnership with online bus ticketing platform redBus through an app “rPool“.

Dedicated space has been offered for rPool to set up kiosks for customer service, along with parking facilities for ride-givers through the app. In addition to this, rPool’s customer service executives posted at the stations will provide 1,000 metro smart cards to its customers.

Car pooling and bike pooling is an ideal solution to reduce congestion by sharing vehicles which allows office-goers to avail and offer rides in their personal cars and bikes. The concept would help the creation of sustainable and eco-friendly solutions for the burgeoning traffic problems in the city.

48th Statehood day anniversary celebrated in Meghalaya

January 22, 2020

Meghalaya celebrated the 48th anniversary of statehood day on 21st January with cultural fanfares immersed in remnants of the ‘Hill State Movement’ that led up to the declaration of Meghalaya as a separate state in the year 1972. Traditional songs and dances marked the celebration at U Soso Tham Auditorium, Shillong. The celebrations will continue till the Republic Day celebration.

On the occasion, Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma stressed on the need to remember the glorious past, document it and pass it on to the younger generations. He said that slogans to die for the state should be replaced by slogans to live for the state and the nation by doing what needs to be done.

Reading of Preamble and Marathi to be mandatory in Maharashtra schools

January 22, 2020

Maharashtra Government has made the reading of the Preamble of the Constitution mandatory for the Maharashtra schools. The  reading will be done after prayer in all primary and secondary schools in Maharashtra.

The Maharashtra government will also enact a law during the next Assembly session, making it mandatory to teach Marathi language in all schools in the state from Class 1 to Class 10 irrespective of mediums of instructions. The next session of the Assembly will be held in February.

Shiv Sena leader, Subhash Desai who is also the Marathi Language Minister, stated the draftbill in this connection is being prepared. The comment was made during an interaction organised by the ‘Mumbai Marathi Patrakar Sangh’.

Hyderabad in global top 20 in home price appreciation

January 22, 2020

Hyderabad has emerged as the only Indian city in top 20 among 150 global cities, in terms of appreciation in residential real estate prices, standing at the 14th spot with a 9% on-year rise in home prices, as per the Knight Frank’s Global Residential Cities Index Q3 2019.

Budapest leads the index, with the highest annual growth rate of 24%, followed by Xi’an and Wuhan in China at 15.9% and 14.9 per cent, respectively. Among other Indian cities that have seen an appreciation in home prices, New Delhi stood at the 73rd rank globally, with a 3.2% rise; Bengaluru at the 94th rank with a 2% appreciation and Ahmedabad at the 108th rank with a 1.1% growth.

Among the Indian cities which have seen de-growth in home prices, Kolkata was ranked at the 130th spot with a decline of 2%, Mumbai at the 135th rank with a de-growth of 3% and Chennai at the 136th rank with a fall of 3%. Pune was the lowest-ranked Indian city standing at the 138th spot, registering a 3.5% decline in home prices.

Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren honoured with ‘Champion of Change Award’

January 21, 2020

Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren was honoured with the “Champion of Change Award-2019” for his work in the Barhait and Dumka assembly constituencies in the state. Former president Pranab Mukherjee gave the award to Soren at a function in New Delhi.

Soren, who had won the Dumka seat in 2009, was defeated in the following assembly elections but regained it in the recently-concluded polls. Soren, who also won the Barhait seat for the second consecutive term, dedicated the award to his father Shibu Soren and the people of Jharkhand.

India International Leather Fair to be held in Chennai from January 31

January 21, 2020

The 35th edition of India International Leather Fair (IILF) will be held from January 31 to February 3 in Chennai. The event will be organised by the Indian Finished Leather Manufacturers and Exporters Association. It will provide an insight about the latest trends and designs in the industry. The highlight of the event will be the Leather Fashion Show scheduled to be held on February 2.

From raw material to finished products like leather footwear, garments and fashion accessories will be showcased at the event. Stakeholders like raw material suppliers, manufacturing equipment suppliers and tanneries will participate in the event and showcase their products.

About 450 exhibitors will display their products during the show. Apart from public, the fair will provide an exposure to the industry people about the latest technology, equipment and trends in the market.