Bihar
- Be generous in allocating funds, Nitish Kumar tells Centre
- Chief minister Nitish Kumar on Sunday said a sum of Rs 50 crore is not enough for strengthening subordinate judiciary in a state like Bihar and asked Union law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad to show more generosity in allocating funds since he also belongs to the state.
- The CM was addressing a function organized to launch the Centre’s One scheme.
- Pointing towards the increasing size of Bihar’s annual budget from Rs25,000-26,000 crore when he took over as CM in 2005 to Rs1.4 lakh crore this fiscal, Nitish said, “An allocation of Rs50 or Rs60 crore will not serve the purpose.”
- Nitish also said he was not demanding funds for strengthening higher judiciary, whose requirements were being taken care of from the state funds. The state government recently sanctioned Rs169 crore for expansion of Patna high court buildings.
INTERNATIONAL
- NASA’s Hubble detects Exoplanet with glowing water atmosphere.
- NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope discovered the strongest evidence to date for the stratosphere on a planet outside our solar system, WASP-121b.
- The stratosphere is a layer of atmosphere in which temperature increases with higher altitudes.
- The discovery was made by an International team of researchers led by the University of Exeter by observing glowing water molecules in WASP-121b’s atmosphere.
- The WASP-121b exoplanet is gas giant commonly referred to as a ‘hot Jupiter’. It has 1.2 times greater mass and 1.9 times greater radius than Jupiter.
NATIONAL
- Around 750 projects awaiting environmental clearance: Government.
- Around 750 projects in various states are awaiting environmental clearance, with a maximum of 194 from
- A total of 741 proposals are awaiting environmental clearance of which 194 are from Maharashtra.
- 95 proposals from Gujarat and 86 from Uttar Pradesh were awaiting environmental clearance.
- The Environment ministry has taken various steps to speed up the process of disposing the applications for environmental clearance.
- They include dedicated online portal for effective monitoring, standardisation of terms of reference for preparation of EIA reports and the Environment Management Plan, exemption from public consultations to certain projects, streamlining the procedure among others.
- Gk bit – The proposals for forest clearances under the provisions of the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, for diversion of forest lands, for non-forestry use are considered in the Ministry and is accorded in 81.2z"/> Subscribe on YouTube