Assam Current Affairs - January 15 - 21, 2019

Current Affairs Assam – January 15 - 21, 2019

( Covers all important Assam Current Affairs & GK topics for the week of January 15 – 21, 2019 )

January 15, 2019

The second India-Myanmar bilateral Army exercise ‘IMBEX 2018-19’ commenced at Chandimandir military station, with the aim of this joint training event is to train the Myanmar delegation for participation in UN peacekeeping operations.
During the exercise, focus will be on training the Myanmar Army on tactics, procedures, expertise and methodology required by the contingent of the member nations for serving in UN peacekeeping operations.
The Myanmar delegation will form the core group of trainers who will further impart training to Myanmar Army personnel who are likely to serve in UN peacekeeping operations.
This is the second military training exercise on UN peacekeeping between the two countries being conducted on Indian soil.

FACTFILE – United Nations peacekeeping

It is a role held by the Department of Peacekeeping Operations as “a unique and dynamic instrument developed by the organization as a way to help countries torn by conflict to create the conditions for lasting peace”.
Peacekeepers monitor and observe peace processes in post-conflict areas and assist ex-combatants in implementing the peace agreements they may have signed.
Accordingly, UN peacekeepers can include soldiers, police officers, and civilian personnel.
The United Nations Charter gives the United Nations Security Council the power and responsibility to take collective action to maintain international peace and security.
In 2007, a peacekeeper volunteer was required to be over the age of 25 with no maximum age limit.
Peacekeeping forces are contributed by member states on a voluntary basis.
As of 30 June 2018, there are 104,680 people serving in UN peacekeeping operations (90,454 uniformed, 12,932 civilian, and 1,294 volunteers).
Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh are among the largest individual contributors with around 8,000 units each.

Senior IAS officer Jaideep Govind was appointed Secretary General of National Human Rights Commission.
Before this appointment, he was posted as Special Secretary and Financial Adviser in the ministries of rural development, panchayati raj, drinking water and sanitation.
Govind, a 1984 batch IAS officer of Madhya Pradesh Cadre, has held various important posts in various capacities such as Additional Secretary in Home Ministry and has looked after critical areas of left-wing extremism and police modernization.
He addressed the UN Forum in New York on human trafficking and attended an important meeting on trafficking of women and children in Bangkok.

FACTFILE – The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) of India

NHRC is an autonomous public body constituted on 12 October 1993 under the Protection of Human Rights Ordinance in 1993 and was given a statutory basis by the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993 (TPHRA).
It is responsible for the protection and promotion of human rights, defined by the Act as “rights relating to life, liberty, equality and dignity of the individual guaranteed by the Constitution or embodied in the International Covenants”.
Chairman – Justice H. L. Dattu

January 16, 2019

The Central government allocated an additional Rs 6,084 crore to the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Gurantee Act (MGNREGA).
The total allocation to the scheme to Rs 61,084 crore in 2018-19, making it the highest ever allocation.

FACTFILE – Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act”, MGNREGA

It is an Indian labour law and social security measure that aims to guarantee the ‘right to work’.
It aims to enhance livelihood security in rural areas by providing at least 100 days of wage employment in a financial year to every household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work.
The act was first proposed in 1991 by P.V. Narasimha Rao , it was finally accepted in the parliament and commenced implementation in 625 districts of India.
It is “the largest and most ambitious social security and public works programme in the world”.
MGNREGA is to be implemented mainly by gram panchayats (GPs). The involvement of contractors is banned. Labour-intensive tasks like creating infrastructure for water harvesting, drought relief and flood control are preferred.

The Centre constituted a seven-member Group of Ministers (GoM) to look into Goods and Services Tax (GST)-related issues of the real estate sector, to analyse the tax rate of GST on the under-construction residential properties for boosting the realty segment.
Nitin Patel, the Deputy Chief Minister of Gujarat, would head the GoM which would
Various other issues related to the sector, the GST rate on under-construction residential properties, demand to slash the rate on the segment to 5 per cent from the current 12 per cent.
Other members of the GoM are finance ministers of five states — Sudhir Mungantiwar of Maharashtra, Krishna Byre Gowda, Kerala, T.M. Thomas Isaac, Karnataka, Manpreet Singh Badal, Punjab and Rajesh Agarwal of Uttar Pradesh. Goa Minister of Panchayat Mauvin Godinho is also a member.
The GoM would examine and suggest ways for composition scheme or any other scheme, for boosting real estate sector and suggest scheme for transition vis-a-vis introduction of suggested scheme.

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has decided to implement an end-to-end prediction system for predicting thunderstorms or lightning by April 2019.
The IMD will be implementing an end-to-end prediction system for predicting thunderstorms or lightning by April 2019.
IITM Pune has already installed 48 lightning sensors around the country which can locate the thunderstorm/lightning activities in real time. The institute has also developed a mobile app called ‘DAMINI’ to give alerts on impending lightning activity over the area.
Currently IITM Pune and IMD are developing a new website for IMD along with the mobile apps for farmers and city forecasts.
IMD, in a bid to further strengthen its observational network will install “10 new X-band weather radars” over north-west Himalayas (Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand) by end of this year.
11 more C-band radars will be installed by IMD over the plains of India by 2020.
IITM Pune with the help of IMD and Mumbai Municipal Corporation is installing a new dense rain-gauge network over Mumbai with 200 rain-gauges.

Pages: 1 2 3 4

AssamExam