Nitish
Kumar sworn in as CM of Bihar for 4th time
Nitish Kumar has sworn in as
the Chief Minister (CM) of Bihar for the 4th time. Governor of Bihar Keshri
Nath Tripathi administered the oath of office and secrecy to him at the oath
taking ceremony held at Raj Bhawan in Patna. Along with Nitish Kumar, 22 Janta
Dal United (JDU) Party legislators, including three women were also sworn in as
Cabinet Ministers. Earlier on 20 February 2015, Jitan Ram Manjhi had resigned
as CM ending a month long political turmoil in Bihar.
Purnendu
Dasgupta wins American Chemical Society award 2015
Purnendu
Dasgupta, an Indian-American has won 2015 American Chemical Society (ACSs)
Division of Analytical Chemistry J. Calvin Giddings Award. He was awarded this
award for his special contribution in the field of analytical chemistry. He
will receive this award in August 2015 at ACS national conference in Boston.
Environmental loss in Sundarbans worth Rs. 1290 Crore: World
Bank Report
As
per World Bank’s recently released report Building Resilience for Sustainable
Development of the Sundarbans, environmental damage in the climate change-hit
islands of Sundarbans is costing India Rs. 1,290 crore each year. This report
was jointly prepared by World Bank in collaboration with the West Bengal government.
Sundarbans is an archipelago of 54 islands and is home to about 44 lakh people.
It is a UNESCO World Heritage site. In recent times it is hit hard by an
increase in floods, storms, salinity and erosion caused by rising sea-levels
and global warming.
RBI
eases some restrictions on shadow bank lending
The Reserve Bank of India
(RBI) has eased lending regulations governing the country’s shadow banking
industry, removing investor limits and the need for collateral guarantees on
standard debt transactions. The RBI said shadow banks would henceforth be able
to conduct non-convertible transactions valued at Rs. 1 crore ($160,000) or
more unsecured, and such issuance would no longer be limited to 200 investors.
Restrictions would remain on debt of less than that value that is not
convertible into equity, and on all convertible debt, the RBI said. India’s
shadow banks, known as non-banking financial firms (NBFCs), are widespread and
include housing finance companies and consumer finance firms that lend small
sums to individuals. The central bank also said NBFCs would not be permitted to
transfer the proceeds of non-convertible debt issues to affiliates.
Takahiro
Hachigo appointed as new President and CEO of Honda
Japanese automaker Honda
Motor Co has appointed Takahiro Hachigo as its new President and Chief
Executive Officer (CEO). He will assume charge in June 2015 and replace
Takanobu Ito, who had stepped down from the top most post in an unexpected move
on 23 February 2015. Prior to this appointment, Hachigo was Managing Officer of
Honda Motor Co. and was appointed to this post in April 2014.
Government
Launches Portal 'Madad' to Redress Consular Grievances
Indian citizens living
abroad will now be able to file consular grievances online as the government
has launched an e-portal to address such complaints promptly with a high degree
of "accountability". The portal 'Madad'(Help) was launched at the
Ministry of External Affairs or MEA headquarters in Delhi by External Affairs
Minister Sushma Swaraj, who said the grievance monitoring facility would
enhance "accessibility" for people and fix greater
"accountability and responsibility" on officials. "The portal
seeks to significantly reform the linear process adopted to post grievances
from the originator of the grievance to the concerned Embassy or Consulate of
India abroad and cut down the time required for grievances to be sent from
Delhi to our Missions abroad and to get them to take necessary action," Ms
Swaraj said. The speedy handling of complaints, improve tracking and redressal
and escalation of unresolved cases are among the chief characteristics of
'Madad'. "After registering, the complainant can log in and file his or
her complaints, and the entire history of that grievance would be maintained
online. The authorities would be assigned the responsibility through a
colour-coded dashboard that would change the colour if the response in not
given in a stipulated time," a senior official of the MEA said.
India
Signs Loan Agreement with ADB for $50 Million Loan To Boost Power Generation
Capacity in Assam
The Asian Development Bank
(ADB) and the Government of India signed a $50 million loan agreement for the
second Assam Power Sector Investment Program which aims to build up the
capacity of power generation and distribution systems to meet the growing
energy demand in the state of Assam. The first tranche loan of the $300 million
multi-tranche financing facility will fund generation capacity enhancement and
distribution efficiency improvement subprojects in the state. Shri Tarun Bajaj,
Joint Secretary (Multilateral Institutions), Department of Economic Affairs,
Ministry of Finance, who signed the agreement on behalf of Government of India
said that more than a third of households in the State face daily electricity
cuts of 5 to 6 hours, many important businesses, such as the tea gardens, still
aren't connected to the grid, and in peak periods Assam has to buy up to 15% of
its power from independent producers at very high cost, said He added that the
project will finance investments to augment and improve generation capacity
through the replacement of an inefficient generating plant and construction of
new hydropower plant.
First
coal block e-auction earns Rs. 1 lakh crore for states
The first round of coal
block e-auction saw some of the key names in the industry bagging 18 mines with
a combined extractable reserve of 90 million tonnes, along with attached
end-use infrastructure. According to the auction amount and royalty payable,
six mineral-rich states are likely to earn a little more than Rs 1 lakh crore
over the next 30 years. That's not all. Non-mineral-rich states will benefit
from tariff concessions, or reduction in power rates arising out of stiff
bidding for coal. By the coal ministry's rough estimates, for every decline of
Rs 100 a tonne in a bid, the power rate gets reduced by 6 paise a unit. The
auction saw companies making even Rs 0 bids; that implies the bidding company
concerned is ready to take the fuel cost on its account books and pass on the
rate reduction to power consumers.
PM
launches soil health card scheme to spruce up farm productivity
In an attempt to check
deteriorating soil quality and spruce up farm productivity, Prime Minister
Narendra Modi launched the soil health card scheme in Suratgarh, Rajasthan. The
scheme will provide all 145 million farm owners in the country with a soil
health card in the next three years. The ambitious scheme was announced in the
first budget presented by finance minister Arun Jaitley in July last year. The
budget allotted Rs.100 crore for issuing cards and an additional Rs.56 crore to
set up 100 mobile soil testing laboratories across the country. The soil health
card details existing nutrient status of the soil and crop-wise recommendations
of nutrients and fertilizers required, making it easier for farmers to improve
productivity by using appropriate inputs.
Scientist
Tapan Misra appointed as Director of ISRO’s Space Application Centre
Eminent scientist Tapan
Misra has been appointed the Chief of ISRO’s Space Applications Centre (SAC),
Ahmedabad Gujarat. He will succeed A S Kiran Kumar, who was appointed as the
Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) in January 2015.He
was awarded Hari Om Ashram Prerit Vikram Sarabhai research Award (2004), ISRO
Merit award (2008), Sir JC Bose National Talent Search (JBNSTS) Scholarship
(1981). He has been 2 granted patents, 6 pending patents, 5 copyrights and many
research papers to his credit.
Rs.
50000 crore naval project gets Cabinet nod
The Cabinet Committee on
Security sanctioned the country's biggest naval project, the construction of
seven stealth frigates for Rs 45,381 crore. Mazagon Dock Ltd (MDL), Mumbai ,
will build four of these, while Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers, Kolkata
(GRSE), simultaneously builds the other three. This project, dubbed Project
17A, follows on from the earlier Project 17, in which MDL built three
5,600-tonne frigates: INS Shivalik, Satpura and Sahyadri. The first of these,
the Shivalik, entered service in 2009. The timeline for Project 17A allows each
shipyard a preparatory period of two years, in which they will prepare for
construction and place orders for long-lead items like engines and
transmission. Then they will actually build the warship over five years. The
first two frigates would be delivered by MDL and GRSE in 2022, with the rest
coming in pairs at one-year intervals. The Project 17A frigates, while
superficially similar to those build under Project 17, will pack significantly
more punch with more advanced weaponry. The new vessels will be fitted with
BrahMos cruise missile for land attack, and the new Indo-Israeli Long Range
Surface-to-Air Missile (LR-SAM) that can shoot down incoming anti-ship
missiles.
Simona
Halep lifted WTA championship title
Simona Halep lifted WTA
championship title after defeating Karolina Pliskova in the final in Dubai. She
defeated Pliskova in a straight sets 6-4, 7-6 to win the 10th trophy of her
career.
AAP
govt ropes in Sushil Kumar to promote sports in Delhi
The Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam
Aadmi Party (AAP) Government has roped in two-time Olympic medal winning
wrestler Sushil Kumar to promote sports in Delhi. As part of the plan, Sushil
would also promote special sports degree programmes. "The Delhi Government
has come up with good ideas for development of sports in Delhi. I have also
given some proposals," he said.
Apollo
Hospitals inks pact with Republic of Macedonia
Apollo Hospitals Group ties
up with the Republic of Macedonia, to expand healthcare services in the
Southeastern European nation. It also establishes efforts to provide
telemedicine, educational opportunities and training over the next five years
for Macedonia, it added.
Veteran
CPI leader Govind Pansare passed away
Veteran leader of Communist
Party of India (CPI), Govind Pansare was shot along with his wife Uma by
unidentified persons near his house in Kolhapur. He passed away at Breach Candy
hospital in Mumbai. He was 82. He was leading a campaign against the collection
of toll in Maharashtra.
State
Bank of India to finance small tea growers in NE
State Bank of India(SBI)
will provide finance Rs 100 crore benefiting 3,000 small tea growers in the
North East soon, a senior official of the public sector bank said today. ii.
Finance will be provided to tea growers who have proper basic documents of
their existing garden as per Tea Board of India norms. "The benefit is not
only for Assam, but also for new tea garden growing states such as Arunachal
Pradesh, Nagaland and Meghalaya which will also be covered under a similar
scheme.
