ASSAM
- Poor infra deterring flow of medical tourists, foreign students to Assam
Medical tourism and higher education are two potential service sector industries for Assam, but due to various gaps – mostly related to infrastructure and connectivity – the State has not been able to tap it so far.
There is a relative shortage of colleges for professional education and local students travel to other states in pursuit of higher education, while lack of accredited hospitals in the region has lead to outflow of domestic demand and diversion of regional international demand, according to an Asian Development Bank report.
Of the 47,427 foreign students enrolled in India in 2018-19, 2,077 (4.4 per cent) were from Bangladesh. The Northeast can capture a major share of this market and Assam has a huge opportunity to tap into India’s share of students enrolled from BBN nations (Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal).
Also, 18 per cent (20,763) of the total outflow of students from South Asia enrolled in India in 2016-17. It was 1.3 per cent for Southeast Asia. However, Assam accounts for just 0.4 per cent of total foreign students enrolled India.
India is one of the preferred destination for medical value travel, ranking fifth in the World Medical Tourism Index. Bangladesh is the largest foreign user of India’s medical services, accounting for 50.54 per cent of the total medical tourists in 2016 and the Northeast, particularly Assam, has the opportunity of becoming the natural choice for medical tourism from the neighbouring country
INTERNATIONAL
● Indians will No Longer Require Visas To Visit Brazil
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, the South American nation will drop its requirement that visiting Chinese and Indian tourists or businesspeople obtain visas.
Bolsonaro, a far-right politician, came to power at the beginning of the year and has made it a policy to reduce visa requirements from several developed countries.
The announcement, made during an official visit to China, is the first he has made expanding that policy to the developing world.
The Brazilian government ended visa requirements for tourists and business people from the United States, Canada, Japan, and Australia. Those countries, however, have not, in return, dropped their visa requirements for Brazilian citizens.
● BASIC countries urge developed nations to adhere to commitments under the Paris Agreement to fight climate change
BASIC countries have urged developed nations to adhere to the commitments made under the Paris Agreement and provide finance and technology to the developing world.
In a joint statement, the BASIC, a bloc of four large countries, Brazil, South Africa, India and China, emphasized that the global climate action should promote climate justice by recognizing the fundamental equality of all people in accessing economic growth and sustainable development.
NATIONAL
● Gandhi Mandela Award 2019 an initiative to commemorate All Time World Pioneers
The Gandhi Mandela Foundation, a New Delhi based non-profit organization, under the aegis of Interactive Forum on Indian Economy (a govt of India recognized 80G, 12A complaint) committed to the ideas of Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela constituted India’s first International Award. The award on the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi exemplary work and achievements of the Heads of State and Government and other distinguished persons/organizations around the world.
● Govt to take Aadhaar help for new farmers’ database
The Union government will use Aadhaar-based data generated from key farm-sector programmes such as PM-KISAN and soil health cards to build a new farmers’ database, which will give unprecedented insights into the rural economy and aid precise targeting of subsidies.
The proposed database has been made possible by the mandatory use of a beneficiary’s Aadhaar — the 12-digit biometric identity — for all rural schemes, according to the first official. It will be a “unified and integrated IT-based” repository, containing multiple information about a farm household, from financial details to landholdings data.
Farm subsidies worth thousands of crores — including cheap insurance, fertilisers and credit-to-cash transfers — still suffer from leakages because very little information about individual farmers is centrally available at the federal level.
An Aadhaar-enabled database that maps actual farm sizes, cropping patterns and agro-climatic zones can create district-level estimates of per capita fertilizer need.The same goes for cheap credit and farm insurance.
● Centre plans to run Ladakh completely on renewable energy
The Union government plans to make Ladakh the first Indian union territory (UT) to run entirely on renewable energy. The newly carved out union territory has already about 30 megawatts (MW) of small hydro projects, and the government wants to install solar generation units to meet all its power demand from renewable energy sources. Ladakh was made an independent union territory after the government recently revoked Article 370.
The Daily solar power generation potential in most The part of the country is in the range of 3-5 units per square meter, the same in Leh-Ladakh can be 6-8 units, thanks to high ‘irradiance’ factor.
The government is targetting to achieve 4,50,000 MW of renewable energy capacity, as announced recently by the Prime Minister, the United Nations General Assembly in New York. This target is expected to be achieved by 2030. Before that, the government is currently working to meet the deadline for installing 175 GW of renewable energy is December 31, 2022. The installed renewable capacity now stands at 82.6 GW.
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