Daily News Analysis for IAS / UPSC (30th June, 2016)

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Majuli to become India’s first river island district

The island is sprawl over 400sqkm Island in the river Brahmaputra.
Assam government has granted a river island named Majuliin the state as district status.
The erosion-troubled Majuli was a sub-division of Jorhat district, will become the 34th district of Assam.

Supreme Court rejects petition seeking ban on WhatsApp messenger

Supreme Court discharged a petition filed by RTI activistseeking a complete banon online messaging platform WhatsApp which have end to end encryption.
petitioner in his file citing this as a National Security concern as demanded the messaging platform to provide a key for the government.

Cabinet clears pay hike for 1 crore govt employees, pensioners

recommendations of the Seventh Central Pay Commission which will give a substantial raise to the salaries and pensions to one crore central government employees of central government employees that will beimplemented from January 1, 2016.
Entry level pay to be raised to 18,000 per monthfrom the current Rs.7,000 a month while maximum pay fixed at Rs. 2.5 lakh per month, up from Rs.90,000 per month that would be drawn by the Cabinet Secretary.

Union Cabinet clears National Mineral Exploration Policy

Pave the way for auction of 100 prospective mineral blocks and enhancingmining potential in India.
Policy likely to attract private sector in exploration through the mineral exploration policy.
Private entities involved in carrying out regional and comprehensive exploration would get assured share in revenue in mining operation from the successful bidder after the e-auctionof block.

Revised Cost Estimates for establishment of Eight New IITs

Revised Cost Estimates for establishment of eight New IITs at Bhubaneswar, Gandhinagar, Hyderabad, Indore, Jodhpur, Mandi, Patna and Ropar.
it would add student strength in each IIT at the end of the project will be 2360. The total student capacity would be 12880 in these eight IlTsby the end of 2019.
revised Cost Estimate is Rs. 13,990 crore against original project cost was Rs. 6080 crorefor establishment of eight new IITs over a period of 11 years from 2008-09 to 2018-19.

“State of the World’s Children 2016” Report

United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) released the annual report“State of the World’s Children 2016” to curb the harassment against the children
Problems facing by Children:Children are affected due to Poverty, Illiteracy and early deaths
If the present situation exists, the world would be affected by
Poverty of about 167 million children
ii. 69 million children under 5 years of age fatal due to preventable causes
iii. 70 million women will has been married as children by 2030.

$201.50 million for Technical Education Quality Improvement Project in India

Purpose:To improve the quality of Engineering education in selected states of India
Objectives of the projects:
To improve quality and equity in participating engineering education institutes
To enhance the efficiency of the engineering education system in states
Fund Allotted:$201.50 million
Maturity period:25 years plus 5 years grace period

Nod to proposal to set up India Post Payments Bank

Indian Post Payments Bank with capital of 800 Crore and to set up 650 branches by September 2017as a Public Limited Company under the Department of Posts, with 100% Government of India (GOI) equity
Focus:To increase financial inclusion in the country
Initial Setup:22,137 Post Offices linked with core banking facility
The bank will be operated by a board which has five independent directors
In every district, Post offices will be linked to core branch of Postal bank
Staff of the postal bank will be from different postal department and staff is expected to be around 2000 members

Axis Bank opens innovation lab to create investment fund

innovation hubsituated in Bangalore will emphasis on curating start-ups and working with them to help them develop the value propositions and the bank will look at absorbing their technology.
start-ups will mainly be centering across lending, digital, payments and artificial intelligence space. For this, the bank has joined hands with Zone Start-ups, Nasscom, venture capitalist and some global banks.
HDFC Bank, SBI, Federal Bank, RBL, ICICI Bankamong others have either allocated funds or created special divisions to engage with the start-up ecosystem
most recently Barclays has also opened a fintech innovation platform.

$63 million for Tejaswini Project in Jharkhand

paves the way for Socioeconomic Empowerment of Adolescent Girls and Young Womenin Jharkhand.
first World Bank projectin India that is especially dedicated on the welfare of adolescent girls and young women.
project will support adolescent girls and young women between the ages of 14 and 24 to complete their secondary level education. It will also help them to acquire relevant skills for the job market.
In Jharkhand there are 56 percent of young women(ages 15-24) are neither engaged in education, nor employment or training.

4 Indian-Americans Honored With Great Immigrants Award

Google Chief Executive Office Sunder Pichai and other three Indian Americans are among the 42 United States citizens conferred with Prestigious“Great Immigrants: The Pride of America”
Presented by:Carnegie Corporation
Indian Americans Awardees:
♦ Sunder Pichai – CEO of Google
♦ Hari Sreenivasan – Anchor and Senior Correspondent, PBS News Hour
♦ Vikram Malhotra – Chairman of the Americas, McKinsey & Company
♦ Bharati Mukherjee – National Book critics circle Award winning author

CAG Shashi Kant Sharma gets honorary professorship in China

He has been conferred honorary professorship by the Nanjing Audit University in China.
Nanjing Audit University is recognised by the Institute of Internal Auditors.
Sharma is the 12th CAG of India.
Shashi Kant Sharma is a 1976 batch Indian Administrative Service(IAS) officer of the Bihar cadre.

Virat Kohli launches new startup Stepathlon kids to promote fitness

Stepathlon Kids – a company focusedon the health and wellness of the next generation.
Stepathlon Kids will pressthe Indian children to take 15,000 steps a day to a healthy lifestyle and to create long term positive behavior.
Stepathlon lifestyle will drive the launch 30-day, pedometer-based, mass participation virtual race, across the nation built to promote fitness among children.

Indore to host first ever Test, no day-night Test in NZ series

Indoreis all set to host its first-ever cricket Test during India’s home series against New Zealand in September-October
New announcement from the BCCI says no Day- Night game against the Blackcaps during the NZ tour, against the earlier plans to have a game with the pink ball.