BIHAR

• State to have smart prepaid energy meters by Aug 2020

• Bihar will have smart prepaid energy meters across all categories of consumers by August 2020.

• The state cabinet has already approved three PSUS — the Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL), Power Finance Corporation (PFC) and the Rural Electrification Corporation (REC) — for engaging them in the task of installing prepaid metres.

• Consumers would not have to wait for electricity bills and stand in queues to pay them once prepaid metres were installed.

• Against a population of nearly 12 crore in Bihar, there are around 1.50 crore power consumers. The government would give each PSU the task to replace 50 lakh post-paid energy metres with prepaid ones, said a senior functionary of the energy department. 

  INTERNATIONAL

   

  ·         NASA created a deep ocean conditions in lab to study origins of life

   

  • Scientists from NASA, the U.S. space agency, have reproduced deep ocean conditions in the labto re-create a life that could have formed on the sea floor four billion years ago.
  • The study focuses on how the building blocks of life form inhydrothermal vents on the ocean floor. It could offer clues to how life started on Earth. Hydrothermal vents are places on the seafloor where warm water from under the Earth’s crust mixes with near-freezing seawater. These vents form natural chimneys, which play host to all kinds of ocean life.
  • The team atNASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California made their own miniature sea floors by filling beakers with mixtures that mimic Earth’s primordial ocean.

   

   

  NATIONAL

   

   

  ·        ISRO launches ‘Yuva Vigyani Karyakram’ for school children

   

  • Indian Space Research Organisation launched “Yuva VIgyani Karyakram”, a “Young Scientist Programme” for the School Children to be studying in the ninth standard.
  • ISRO Scientists will impart basic knowledge on Space Technology, Space Science and Space Applications to the young ones with the intent of arousing their interest in the emerging areas of Space activities.
  • “Catch them young” residential training programme will be of around two weeks duration during summer holidays with a proposal to select 3 students from each State and Union Territory, covering CBSE, ICSE and State syllabus.
  • Government asked scientific institutions in the country to mentor young minds in the area of basic science.
  • It has launched the YUVA programme.
  • It has approached the Chief Secretaries of the respective States and Administrators of Union Territories in India to arrange for the selection of three students and communicate the list to ISRO.

   

  • Delhi-NCR overtakes Maharashtra as India’s top FDI destination

   

  • The New Delhi region, which covers the national capital and parts of Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Haryana, has pipped long-standing leader Maharashtra, in attracting FDI (foreign direct investment) equity inflows into the country.
  • New Delhi received FDI equity inflows to the tune of Rs 57,333 crore ($8.3 billion) in the first nine months of 2018-19 (FY19), data released by DIPP (Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade) showed. FDI equity inflows aggregated about $33.5 billion in first nine months of fiscal year 2018-19, a 7% decline compared to the same corresponding period in the previous fiscal year.

   

  • The top-5 sectors — services, computer hardware and software, chemicals, telecommunication and trading— accounted for nearly 65% of total FDI equity inflows. During the first nine months of FY2018-19, chemicals received highest FDI inflows of $6.07 billion, which was 18% of the total FDI equity inflows during this timeframe.

   

   

  ·         PM launched ‘One Nation One Card’ for all modes of travel

   

  • PM Narendra Modi launched the indigenously-developed National Common Mobility Card(NCMC) while inaugurating the first phase of the Ahmedabad metro train service in Ahmedabad.
  • Dubbed as ‘One Nation One Card‘ can be used to pay for travelling on any mode of transportation and can also be used to withdraw moneyand to shop across the country.

   

   

   

  ·         Prayagraj Kumbh Mela 2019 has made into Guinness World Records

   

   

  • The Prayagraj Kumbh Mela 2019 has made intoGuinness World Records in the following three sectors:

    (i) Largest traffic and crowd management plan

    (ii) Biggest painting exercise of public sites under paint my city scheme

    (iii) Biggest sanitation and waste disposal mechanism

   

  • Kumbh Mela, the festival of the sacred pitcher is the largest public gathering and collective act of faith, anywhere in the world. It is celebrated four times over a course of 12 years over four locations in India

    The four sacred rivers where Kumbh Mela is celebrated are:

    (i) Haridwar on the Ganges in Uttarakhand

    (ii) Ujjain on the Shipra in Madhya Pradesh

    (iii) Nashik on the Godavari in Maharashtra

    (iv) Prayagraj at the confluence of the Ganges, the Yamuna, and the mythical Sarasvati in Uttar Pradesh

    The Kumbh Mela has been inscribed on the list of “Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity” by UNESCO in 2017