Table of Contents
Mann Ki Baat
• An extensive exercise on agricultural reforms is being undertaken across the country to ensure that farmers get a fair price for their crop.
•Government is connecting local village mandis to wholesale markets and subsequently, with the global market.
•In this year’s budget, a big decision has been taken to ensure that farmers get a fair price for their produce.
Mann Ki Baat
•India has now moved ahead from the conventional approach in the health sector.
• Efforts are being extensively undertaken to make health care accessible and affordable for the common man.
• More than three thousand Jan Aushadhi Kendras have been opened across the country and more than eight hundred medicines are being provided there at an affordable price.
• Ayushman Bharat Yojana: 5 lakh rupees cover.
• Mr Modi said, the campaign of Make in India is progressing successfully in consonance with Dr. ambedkar’s dream of India as an industrial super power.
Union Information & Broadcasting Ministry
• Smriti Irani today launched 2018-22 action plan for transformation of
Narmada district in Gujarat.
• She held a review meeting with the senior district officials and discussed the
action plan for transformation based on the 49 indicators suggested by NITI Aayog.
• Transforming Narmada — Transforming India 2022 Union Information & Broadcasting Ministry
• She expressed concern over the poor performance of the district in board exams and added that a dedicated action plan will be made to improve educational standards of the district.
• Ms Irani also visited Narmada Dam and Sardar Patel Statue of Unity project site at Kevadiya Colony.
• She said that with the completion of the project, Narmada district will attract tourists in large numbers, generating employment opportunities.
Kaziranga National Park
• Assam, the rhino census at the world heritage site Kaziranga National Park begins.
• Chief Conservator of Forest, NK Vaasu said, result of the survey will be known on 28th of this month.
• The entire park has been divided into 74 compartments. Safaris will remain closed during the census.
• 2401 rhinos were found at the Kaziranga national park as per the last census conducted in 2015.
Ministry of Rural Development
• Shri Narendra Singh Tomar today inaugurated the SARAS Aajeevika Mela 2018 here and said that the Aajeevika mission is bringing huge socio-economic transformation in the lives of rural women.
• Welcoming all skilled artisans and SHG women from across the country to the SARAS Mela, he stated that Ministry of Rural Development is committed to supporting the rural poor, especially women members of Self Help Groups in improving their economic and social status.
Ministry of Rural Development
• Towards this end, the Ministry is implementing the Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana-National Rural Livelihoods Mission which aims at making the rural women confident, aware and self-dependent.
• The SARAS Aajeevika Mela is an attempt to provide direct marketing platform to the rural women producers so that they get proper prices for their products by eliminating middle men.
Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment
• A’ National Conference on Down Syndrome’ was organised by the National Trust under Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment here today.
• A book entitled “Twilights Children” based on the lives of person suffering from Down Syndrome was released on the occasion.
Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment
•Down Syndrome is a chromosomal condition associated with intellectual and learning disabilities.
•Delayed development and behavioural problems are often reported in children with it.
• For seeking commitments of various stakeholders and increasing their awareness about Down Syndrome, National Trust organised this National Conference on Down Syndrome.
Ministry of New and Renewable Energy
• The International Solar Alliance (ISA) and the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), signed the Host Country Agreement.
• The Agreement will give ISA a juridical personality and gives it power to contract, to acquire and dispose off movable and immovable properties, to institute and defend legal proceedings.
• Under this agreement, ISA shall enjoy such privileges, applicable tax concessions and immunities as are necessary for ISA’s Headquarter to independently discharge its
function and programmes.
Ministry of New and Renewable Energy
•General (Dr.) V.K. Singh also congratulated ISA and stated that ISA has an onerous task at hand to mobilise over US $ 1000 billion of investment into the Solar Sector and deploying over 1000 GW of Solar capacity.
•He also stated that ISA need to firm up financial partnership deals with more multilateral and bilateral donor agencies in order to meet its stated objectives.
•ISA has presently four ongoing programmes:
1. Scaling Solar Applications for Agricultural Use
2. Affordable Finance at Scale
3. Scaling Solar Mini Grids
4. Scaling Solar Rooftop
Parliament: Temple of Democracy becoming irrelevant?
• Parliament begins, uproar ensues, MPs compete with runner Usain Bolt in a high-speed relay to the well, and immediately the People’s House shuts down.
• Another day of taxpayer money wasted, debate on lifeaffecting legislation stymied, and yet another nail hammered into the coffin of Westminster-style democracy in India.
Parliament: Temple of Democracy becoming irrelevant?
• There was no debate on where taxpayers’ hard-earned money was being spent.
• MPs’ salary hikes were pushed through too, as was a
outrageous amendment to the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act , ensuring that foreign donations to parties cannot be scrutinised with retrospective effect stretching all the way back to 1976.
• Leaders armed with hefty mandates feel they can overthrow the rules and norms of the democratic game altogether.
• There’s a catastrophic breakdown of relations between government and opposition.
• The government, arrogant in its brute majority, is contemptuous of the opposition and ready to bulldoze its rivals.
•During Rajiv Gandhi’s tenure, the opposition boycotted the House over Bofors. But relations have never been as dire as today, making ours a hyper-polarised polity.
• The opposition, for its part, is keeping up a shrill diatribe. The government refuses to reach out while the opposition remains badly splintered.
• PM Modi once touched his forehead to the entrance of Parliament as a mark of respect, but in the Gujaratmodel of politics, dissenting MLAs were sometimes suspended for as long as a year.
• The manner in which a key law like Aadhaar was pushed through as a money bill shows an impatience with democratic debate.
•If the Budget was passed amid ruckus, why is a noconfidence motion being stalled because of the same
ruckus?
• Every populist demand of states, from special status for Andhra to greater share in Cauvery waters, is an excuse to paralyse Parliament in the quest to appeal to evernarrower regional constituencies.
•Isn’t Parliament supposed to represent all Indians? Instead, the manner in which Andhra and Tamil Nadu MPs are stalling the House shows that the national agenda is now hostage to competing regionalist demands.
•In the 1950s and ’60s, swashbuckling parliamentarians like Piloo Mody, Nath Pai, George Fernandes and Minoo Masani shot to national fame and won elections because of their parliamentary skills.
• They did so in pre-TV days when speeches and walkouts were not staged for the camera.
• When winning a seat is about religion, caste, money power, local factors or simply about being a lamp post in a ‘Modi wave’, why should anyone bother with how they perform in Parliament?
• Around 58% of the 16th Lok Sabha are first-time MPs who remain mostly mute during debates or stage theatrics for the camera.
• MPs complain that instead of debating national issues, they are asked by their constituents to fix drains and nursery admissions.
• Many are now no different from municipal corporators or zilla chiefs expected to answer local needs, judged by their ability to ‘fix’ the system, not by their intellect.
• Parliament today is in ICU, and citizens are waiting helplessly in an empty hospital waiting room.
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