BIHAR
- Student loan scheme re-launch amid fanfare
- Chief minister Nitish Kumar launched the online transfer of education loan on Saturday to mark the beginning of the student credit card (SCC) scheme under the aegis of Bihar State Education Finance Corporation (BSEFC). He also distributed symbolical cheques and student credit cards to 10 beneficiary students drawn from different colleges.
- Previously, the loan disbursal under the state government scheme, which happens to be part of Nitish’s “seven resolves for a developed Bihar”, was done by public sector banks.
- However, the disbursal was pathetically slow and little, forcing the government to establish BSEFC to run the vital scheme that aims at providing up to Rs 4 lakh to Class XII passed students for higher studies and Class X board passed students opting for polytechnic courses at a simple interest of 4 per cent for boys and 1 per cent for girls, physically challenged and transgenders.
INTERNATIONAL
· Santali becomes 1st Indian tribal language to get own Wikipedia edition
- The Santhali Wikipedia got approval from the language committee of the Wikimedia Foundation on June 28 and went live on August 2.
- It presently has content of about 70,000 words.
- Santali is written in Ol Chiki scriptand spoken by 4 million people, according to the 2001 census, in India alone and its speakers live mostly in Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha and Assam. It is also spoken in Bangladesh and Nepal.
- Several hundred students wrote their Class 10 board examinations under the West BengalBoard of Secondary Education (WBBSE) in the Ol Chiki script for the first time this year.
- Wikipedia is available in nearly 300 languagesglobally as of August 2018.
· Global Innovation Index (GII) 2018 launched in India
- The event was organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) – one of the founding partners of Global Innovation Index (GII) along with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), in collaboration with the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP).
- GII improved from 60 in 2017 to 57 in 2018.
NATIONAL
- “PARIVESH” – an environmental single window hub launched
- The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, launched PARIVESH (Pro-Active and Responsive facilitation by Interactive, Virtuous and Environmental Single-window Hub) on the occasion of World Biofuel Day.
- PARIVESH is a Single-Window Integrated Environmental Management System, developed in pursuance of the spirit of ‘Digital India’ initiated by the Prime Minister and capturing the essence of Minimum Government and Maximum Governance.
· Govt extended eVisa facility for citizens of 165 countries
- In order to promote tourism, the Indian government has extended e-visa facility for citizens of 165 countries at 25 airportsand five seaports.
- On March 2018, The Ministry of Tourism has launched the ‘Incredible India 2.0‘ campaign, to promote various destinations and tourism products of the country including spiritual, medical and wellness tourism in important and potential source markets overseas.
· Cabinet approved for four more NDRF battalions
- The Union Cabinet approved forfour more battalions of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF). The estimated cost for the approval is 637 crore. It aimed at reducingthe response time considering the country’s vast geographic area.
- Among the four battalions, initially, two battalions will be raised in the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and one each in the Border Security Force (BSF) and the Assam Rifles. Once raised in the marked areas, these battalions will be converted into NDRF battalions.
- In future, these battalions have been planned to be placed in J&K, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and the Delhi National Capital Region based on the need.
· Country lost one-third of its coastline from erosion, gained almost as much: Report
- Natural causes such as cyclones and waves, as well as human activities like construction have led to nearly one-third of a large part of India’s coastline to be eroded in the last 26 years, but almost an equal area has been added because of new sediment deposits, according to a government report.
- The National Centre for Coastal Research surveyed 6,031 kilometres of India’s 7,517-kilometre coastline from 1990 to 2016, and found that 33 per cent of it has witnessed erosion, most of it along the eastern coast facing the Bay of Bengal, with West Bengal recording the highest erosion. At the same time, 29 per cent of the surveyed coastline saw an accretion, or gain in deposits.
- The report says that 2,156.43 kilometres of the country’s surveyed coastline faced erosion, while 1,941.24 kilometres saw accretion on shore.
- The report found that 63 per cent of West Bengal’s coastline has eroded, losing 99 sq km of land in the last 26 years. The second-highest loss was in Puducherry (57 per cent), followed by Odisha (28 per cent) and Andhra Pradesh (27 per cent).
- Kerala is the only state on the western coast that saw erosion of over 40 per cent of its coastline, while Gujarat, Diu and Daman saw an erosion of 26 per cent, Maharashtra 24 per cent, Goa 12 per cent and Karnataka 22 per cent.
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