ASSAM

Bengal tiger’s Assam lifeline

The Bengal tiger is looking to Assam to help it survive a massive population erosion in one of its erstwhile strongholds.

The plan is to relocate a male and two females from Kaziranga or Orang in Assam to Buxa Tiger Reserve in north Bengal before 2020.

The tiger relocation project, conceived in 2016, is a collaborative effort involving the forest department, the National Tiger Conservation Authority, the Wildlife Institute of India and the Global Tiger Forum.

The strategy of relocating tigers to repopulate dying reserves had been first tried out at Sariska in Rajasthan in 2008. Panna in Madhya Pradesh benefited from a similar initiative in 2010, followed by some other parks. But all these relocations were intra-state. The first inter-state relocation happened on June 21 this year, when a big cat from Kanha was shifted to Satkosia in Odisha.

The Buxa reserve spans 760sqkm and shares its borders with Assam and Bhutan. Buxa used to have high tiger density because of its abundant prey base.

INTERNATIONAL

· Google introduced Launchpad Accelerator for AI, ML Startups in India

Launchpad Accelerator India” is a new comprehensive mentorship programme tailored exclusively for Indian startups that are using Machine Learning (ML)and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to build solutions for the pressing problems in the country.
The selected 8-10 startups will get Google’s mentorship and $100K Google Credits.

NATIONAL

Madras HC ruled that the name of the father in birth certificate is optional

The Madras High Court has ruled that there is no legal obligationon the part of a mother to disclose the name of the father at the time of registering her child’s birth.
The court said it will be sufficient for women, who go for intrauterine insemination, to file a sworn affidavit that the child was born from her womb. Justice M.S. pointed out that neither the Births and Deaths Act of 1969, a Central enactment, nor the Tamil Nadu Registration of Births and Deaths Rules of 2000, framed by the State government by exercising powers conferred on it under the Act, requires the father’s name to be recorded in the birth register maintained by local bodies.

· Aadhaar enabled DBT savings estimated over Rs 90,000 crore

After inception of Aadhaar-based Direct Benefit Transfer(DBT), over Rs 90,000 crore has been saved and gained as on March 31 this year.
121 crore residents have so far enrolled for Aadhaar card and on an average over 30 million(3 crore) e-transactions are done using the identification system.
Aadhaar data is completely safe and secure and is kept in about 7,000 servers in Bengaluru and Manesar.

· Indian Army signed MoU with SBI on the Defence Salary Package

Defence Salary Package will include free personal accident death, free permanent total disability cover and other accidental benefits to the deceased soldier and family.
The first MoU between SBI and the Indian Army was signed in 2011 and was renewed in February 2015.
The renewed MoU will be valid till January 3, 2019.

· ₹1,100 crore to be spent on border villages

The Centre has released ₹1,100 crore in 2017-18 for the all-round development of villages located along the international border in 17 states.

According to the home ministry, 61 model villages, with amenities like health centre, school, drinking water, will be developed along the border and ₹126 crore has been released for this purpose.

The issues related to the implementation of the Border Area Development Programme (BADP) were discussed. Each model village will provide all basic facilities like primary health centre, primary education, community centre, connectivity, drainage, drinking water, etc. to enable sustainable living in border areas.

BADP covers 111 border districts in 17 states to meet special development needs of border population with focus on people living within 50 kilometers of the International Border.

A total of ₹13,400 crore has been released since the programme was initiated in 1986-87.

· Centre may cap school fee hikes at 10% per year

Bringing relief to parents beset by frequent and arbitrary increases in school fees, a government commission is likely to suggest a 10% yearly cap on the fee hike permissible by private, unaided schools, with provisions for penalties in case of violations.

Although fixing school fees is the domain of state governments, in the absence of a standard fee policy for unaided schools, there has been a growing clamour for central regulations.

India has 350,000 private, unaided schools — 24% of all schools — where 75 million children, or 38% of all students, study. Such schools do not receive any grant from the government and have to generate their own revenue for sustenance.

According to the draft regulations, if a school violates the norms provided in the uniform fee framework, it will be fined 1% of the revenue it generates in the first instance, which will increase to 2 % and 5% for a second and third violation.

· Ayushman Bharat: Use of Aadhaar only ‘desirable, not must

The use of Aadhaar Card is desirable but not a must to avail benefits under the Ayushman Bharat —National Health Protection Mission, the Union Health Ministry said.

It said that the notification of the Ayushman Bharat – National Health Protection Mission being issued under Section 7 of the Aadhaar Act merely enabled the implementation agencies to ask for authentication of identity.

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