ASSAM

• IIT-Guwahati only institute from NE to break into national top 10 rankings

• IIT-Guwahati was the only institute from the region that made it to the top 10 rankings in the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) – India Rankings 2019, released by the Union ministry of human resource development earlier this month.
• The institute has been ranked seventh in the engineering category and ninth overall. Few other institutes from the region made a mark in the rankings. Far behind IIT was Tezpur University in the overall rankings, at 48 – a marginal dip in rankings from 46 last time. It was followed by North Eastern Hill University, Shillong (62) and Gauhati University (65).

• No institute from Manipur, Nagaland, Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram found a place in the overall rankings.

• In the university rankings, Tezpur University led from the region, ranked 29th, followed by North Eastern Hill University, Shillong at 39. They were followed by Gauhati University (42), Dibrugarh University (86), Assam University (97), Mizoram University (76) and Rajiv Gandhi University, Itanagar (99).

• No institute from the region was listed in college rankings.
  In the medical institute rankings, only one – Regional Institute of Medical Sciences, Imphal West – featured from the northeast, at 28th.

• Similarly, IIM-Shillong is the only management institute from the northeast to find a place in the rankings, 24^th.

• The region’s performance was better in the engineering category.
  Apart from IIT-Guwahati at seventh overall, five other institutes made it to the rankings table – NIT-Silchar (51), NIT-Meghalaya (67), NIT-Agartala (70), NIT-Manipur (148) and North Eastern Regional Institute of Science and Technology-Arunachal Pradesh (173). 

   

  INTERNATIONAL

  • UN owes India USD 38 million for peacekeeping operations

   

  • United Nations(UN) owes India USD 38 million, the highest it has to pay to any country, for the peacekeeping operations as of March 2019.
    In a report on improving the financial situation of the world body, as of March 31, 2019, the total amount payable to troop- and police-contributing countries with respect to active peacekeeping missions was USD 265 million.
  • Of this, the UN owes USD 38 million to India, followed by Rwanda (USD 31 million), Pakistan (USD 28 million), Bangladesh (USD 25 million) and Nepal (USD 23 million).
  • The arrears to troop- and police-contributing (TCCs/PCCs) countries could increase toUSD 588 million by June 2019 “in the worst-case scenario”.

   

  • Etihad Airways became 1st major airline to operate plastic-free flight

   

  • The UAE’s flag carrier Etihad Airways has become the first airlinein the Gulf region to operate a flight EY484 without any single-use plasticson board, in a bid to raise awareness about pollution on Earth Day (April 22).
  • Etihad identified that over 95 single-use plastic products are used across its aircraft cabins.
  • As a result of planning the Earth Day flight EY484, Etihad additionally committed to remove up to 20% of the single-use plastic items on board by June 1.
    The airline also announced that by the end of this year, Etihad will have removed 100 tonnes of single-use plastics from its inflight service.

   

  NATIONAL

   

  • Indian Army to induct women as Jawans

   

  • TheIndian Army has started the process of inducting women as jawans by starting their online registration for recruitment in the corps of military police. Until now women were being inducted only as officers and this is the first time they would be taken in as soldiers. Women will be inducted in a graded manner to eventually comprise 20% of the total Corps of Military Police and their role will range from probing crime cases to assisting the army in field operations wherever required.
    Accordingly, the Army chalked out induction of approximately 800 women in military police with a yearly intake of 52 personnel per year.

   

  • Currently, women were allowed in selected areas such as medical, legal, educational, signals and engineering wings of the Army.

   

  ·         PM Kisan: Centre pays around Rs 10.5 k cr towards 1st, 2nd tranche

  ð  Around 3.10 crore small farmers have so far received the first tranche of Rs 2,000 each under the PM-Kisan scheme and 2.10 crore peasants have got the second instalment as well, costing Rs 10,500 crore to the exchequer.

  ð  The Centre announced the Rs 75,000-crore Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-Kisan) scheme under which Rs 6,000 per year would be paid to 12 crore farmers in three equal instalments.

  • In the budget, the NDA government allocated a sum of Rs 20,000 crore, to transfer Rs 2,000 each to farmers in the first installment by March-end, for the ongoing fiscal under the scheme.

   

  ð  The scheme was formally launched at national level by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on February 24 at Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh by transferring the first instalment to 1.01 crore farmers, amounting Rs 2,021 crore.

   

  ð  Small and marginal farmers who hold cultivable land of up to 2 hectares are eligible under the scheme.

   

  • Gujarat, first to use geothermal energy to generate power

   

  • Gujarat is set to become the first state in the country to use Geothermal energy to produce electricity. The power plant being set up at Dholera will become operational in April.
  • “India’s first geothermal power plant will start operating on a pilot scale in April in Dholera, and it will produce 20 KW of electricity. Dholera was chosen for the plant as immense heat has been found under the earth in the form of hot springs

  ð  Geothermal energy is a clean source of power, which would be available round the clock and throughout the year, unlike other renewable energy sources.