Lovlina won the third Olympic medal for India. She won bronze medal after going down 0-5 against Busenaz Surmeneli from Turkey in 69kg welterweight semifinals on August 4, 2021.
Lovlina Borgohain belongs to Golaghat district of Assam. Her father is a small-scale businessman. She started her career as kickboxer and switched to boxing after getting opportunity from the field. She participated in trials at her high school conducted by Sports Authority of India. She was selected by renowned Coach Padum Boro. He started giving training Lovlina in 2012. She was selected to participate in 2018 Commonwealth Games in welterweight boxing category. However, she could not win medal and lost it in quarterfinals.
Cabinet chaired by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal gave nod to proposal of 66% salary hike for MLAs.
MLAs in Delhi were earlier paid rupees 54,000 per month which included rupees 12,000 salary and remaining amount as allowances. Salary and Allowances of Delhi MLAs were not revised since 2011.
Government has increased constituency allowance from Rs 18000 to Rs 25000, telephone allowance from Rs 8000 to Rs 10000, secretarial allowance from Rs 10000 to Rs 15000 and conveyance allowance from Rs 6000 to Rs 10,000. Delhi MLAs as also entitled to daily allowance of Rs 1000 which is subject to a maximum of 40 days per year for attending Assembly session or committee meetings. They will also get free medical facilities and Rs 4000 per month for electricity and water facility. Travelling facility of Rs 50000 will also be provided to them.
Parliament passed Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (Amendment) Bill, 2021, on August 3, 2021 after Rajya Sabha approved the bill amidst the protest.
This bankruptcy law of India was put forward in 2016 to consolidate existing framework by creating a single law for bankruptcy and insolvency. The code provides for solution to resolve bankruptcy and insolvencies timely in order to protect the interests of small investors and make the process of doing business simpler.
Animal Birth Control (ABC) Centre at Konakkarai in Tamil Nadu has become operational again.
Animal Birth Control Unit comprises of five pre-operative and five post-operative wards. It has the capacity to sterilise about 30 dogs in a day.
Unit was criticised because lack of manpower, particularly veterinarians, resulted into the inaction of the unit. Thus, the unit was criticised by residents who were affected by stray dog menace. This civic body initially engaged veterinarians of Animal Husbandry Department to carry out sterilisation. However, doctors could not fully concentrate because they were primarily attached with the department.
Tiruchi Corporation has been made operational now and will engaged a private veterinarian for the sterilisation drive.
Sterilisation drive aims to check exponential growth in stray dog population.
These rules were enacted under Section 38 of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960. It seeks to reduce dog population by sterilization and minimization of stray dogs by involving animal welfare organisations, private individuals and local authorities. The rules were established to treat animals with care, compassion and in humane manner. Rule 9 and 10 of Animal Birth Control (Dogs) Rules, 2001, focuses on controlling and killing of incurably ill, mortally wounded and rabid dogs.
India’s Consumption Expenditure Survey (CES) is conducted by National Sample Survey Office every five years. But, CES data has not been released since 2011-2012. But there are clear indications that, Poverty in India is on rise again.
Indian economy has been slowing for nine quarters prior to outbreak of covid-19 pandemic. NSO’s Periodic Labour Force Survey shows that, unemployment had increased to 45-year high in 2017-18. Further, there is a clear trajectory of falling poverty from 1973 to 2012. Since India started collecting data on poverty, incidence of poverty has always fallen. As per Lakdawala Poverty line, Poverty was 54.9% in 1973-74, 44.5% in 1983-84, 36% in 1993-94 and reached to 27.5% in 2004-05.
Planning Commission decided to raise poverty line in accordance with the Suresh Tendulkar Committee recommendations in 2011. Based on Tendulkar poverty line, poverty estimates for 2004-05 and 2011-12 are to be found in estimates of Planning Commission using the CES of those years. Thus, 2011-12 poverty line was extended for each state and used consumption expenditure reported by PLFS to estimate poverty head count ratio (incidence of poverty in population) and absolute number of poor. PLFS can be used to estimate incidence of poverty because it collects the household monthly per capita consumption expenditure data on the basis of Mixed Recall Period methodology.
There has been a rise in incidence of poverty since 2011-12 in consistent with the leaked NSO’s CES data for 2017-18. As per the leaked data, rural consumption between 2012 and 2018 had decreased by 8%, while urban consumption had increased by 2%. By 2019-20, poverty had increased in the rural as well as urban areas. Rural areas witnessed highest increase from 25% to 30%.
Two major projects, developed under Smart City initiative of the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC), are ready for inauguration.
Under the smart city initiative, VMRDA park (also known as VUDA Park) on Beach Road and Multi Level Car Parking (MLCP) Project at Jagadamba Junction have been completed.
MLCP project is one of the prestigious projects of GVMC. It was started with the aim of solving parking issues at Jagadamba Junction, the most crowded junctions in the city because of a number of theatres, shopping malls, hospitals and private medical labs. The G+5 project was undertaken by a Pune-based private company at the cost of ₹9.7 crore. This parking project is completely computerised and can accommodate some 100 cars.
Modernisation works in the park was also undertaken by GVMC under the smart city initiative, even though park is under the supervision of Visakhapatnam Metropolitan Region Development Authority (VMRDA). Park spread across 33 acres and was developed at a cost of rupees 33 crore in three zones catering to people of all ages. Major attractions of the park include skating area, cycling track, jogging track, children play arena, view point, and open space for others to play with lawn and an exclusive yoga circle. Diverse types of herbal saplings have been planted in a bid to attract nature lovers.
Smart city mission, a Centrally Sponsored Scheme, was launched by government of India in 2015 with the objective of integrating city functions, utilizing scarce resources more efficiently and improving the quality of life of citizens.
Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) has undertaken installation of Agro-Automatic Weather Stations (AWS) in order to provide exact weather forecast to people with special focus on farmers.
The GKMS scheme as well as Weather-based operational AAS are rendered by IMD in association with the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and State Agricultural Universities. This scheme is a move towards weather-based crop and livestock management strategies and operations to benefit the farming community in India. Under this scheme, medium range weather forecast is generated at district and block level. On the basis of forecast, Agromet Advisories are prepared and communicated to the farmers by Agromet Field Units (AMFUs) co-located with State Agricultural Universities, and DAMUs at KVKs. Advisories are communicated on every Tuesday and Friday that help farmers to take decision on day-to-day agricultural operations.
Ministry of Earth Sciences also launched a mobile App called ‘Meghdoot’ to help farmers to get weather information, alerts and agromet advisories specific to their districts.
Supreme Court has put stay on National Green Tribunal (NGT) order of prohibiting use of parks for social, commercial, marriage or any other functions.
NGT had directed the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) in February 4, 2021 order to ensure that no park is used to hold any social, cultural, commercial and marriage or other functions in Delhi. NGT had referred to order of Delhi High Court that prohibited the use of parks and maintained that Delhi Development Authority and civic bodies will be held accountable in case of violation of the order.
NGT was established for effective and expeditious disposal of cases related to environmental protection and conservation of forests under the National Green Tribunal Act 2010. It also looks after other natural resources such as enforcement of any legal right related to environment. This specialized body has been equipped with necessary expertise to handle environmental disputes. It is not bound by procedure under Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 however, it is guided by principles of natural justice. New Delhi is the headquarter of Tribunal. Tribunal also sits at Bhopal, Pune, Kolkata and Chennai.
Supreme Court of India on August 3, 2021 held that, Governor of state can pardon prisoners, including in the death sentence cases.
Supreme court bench observed and noted this while considering the feasibility of remission policies in Haryana.
Article 161 of the Indian constitution provides the Governor of a State with power to grant pardons, reprieves, respites or to remit punishment or to suspend, remit or commute sentence of any person convicted of any offence against laws.
Scope of pardoning power of the President under Article 72 is wider than that of the Governor under Article 161 in two ways:
Lok Sabha passed the Tribunals Reforms Bill on August 3, 2021 that seeks to abolish nine appellate tribunals.
All pending cases before such tribunals or authorities will be transferred to Commercial Court or High Court.
Government started the process of rationalisation of tribunals in 2015. Seven tribunals were abolished or merged on the basis of functional similarity under the Finance Act, 2017. Their number was reduced from 26 to 19. In the line, Tribunals Reforms (Rationalisation and Conditions of Service) Bill, 2021 was introduced in Lok Sabha on February 13, 2021. It proposed to abolish more tribunals and authorities as well as provided for a mechanism of filing an appeal directly to Commercial Court or High Courts.
Solarpunk is an art movement that showcase how the future might look if humanity gets success in solving major contemporary challenges by emphasising on sustainability problems like climate change and pollution.
Solarpunk comprises of many aspects of punk ideologies such as egalitarianism, humanitarianism, anti-consumerism, anti-authoritarianism, anti-corporatism, anti-war, anti-racism, anti-sexism, decolonisation, animal rights etc. It also comprises of aspects of free-culture movement, freedom of information and free software.
Some of the examples of solarpunk in speculative fiction include:
Solarpunk name is derived from 1980s science fiction genre cyberpunk. Earliest ideas of solarpunk dates back to 2008 when a blog named Republic of the Bees published a post, “From Steampunk to Solarpunk.” Post started the conceptualization of solarpunk as a literary genre. Following the trend, the first solarpunk anthology called “Solarpunk: Histórias ecológicas e fantásticas em um mundo sustentável” was released in Brazil in 2012, for which English version was released in 2018.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will invite India’s Olympic contingent as special guests at the Red Fort on August 15 when he will be delivering his eighth Independence Day speech.
India sent a large contingent for last three editions of Summer Olympics. Tokyo Olympics 2021 is observing a 228-member strong contingent from India who are participating in 18 sporting events. India’s Olympic contingent for Tokyo 2020 comprises of 127 participants from 18 sports. Two alternate players including one reserve goalie in men’s and women’s hockey squads have also been sent.
117 Indian athletes including 63 men and 54 women participated in 2016 Rio Olympics across 15 sports. Indian roster featured three Olympic medallists from London, including badminton player Saina Nehwal, rifle shooter Gagan Narang and freestyle wrestler & four-time Olympian Yogeshwar Dutt. While in the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, 83 athletes including 60 men and 23 women competed in 13 sports. In 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, India was represented by 57 athletes in 12 sports.
Summer Olympic Games or Games of the Olympiad are major international multi-sport event which is held after every four years. First Games were held in 1896 in Athens, Greece. Games are organised by International Olympic Committee (IOC). IOC also oversees the host city’s preparations. In Olympic event, tradition of awarding gold medals for first place, silver medals for second place and bronze medals for third place started in 1904.
Lok Sabha passed the Essential Defence Services Bill-2021 on August 3, 2021 that seeks to prevent workers of government-owned ordnance factories from going on strike to oppose corporatization of units.
Bill defines the action of strike as “cessation of work, go-slow, stay-in, sit down, token strike, sympathetic strike or mass casual leave by persons engaged in essential defence services who are acting in combination or concerted refusal or refusal under common understanding of persons who are so engaged to continue to work or to accept employment”.