HIMACHAL PRADESH
- State tops in RUSA fund utilisation
- In spite of the hasty implementation of the Rashtriya Uchattar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA), which created a turmoil, Himachal has topped in the utilisation of funds under RUSA followed by West Bengal and Orissa.
- Himachal was the first state to adopt RUSA in 2013-14 and earned the wrath but it succeeded in utilising nearly 80 per cent funds. The Project Approval Board (PAB) had sanctioned Rs 226 crore of which Rs 162 crore was actually received and Rs 125 crore was utilised, said state project director, RUSA, Gopal.
- The gap was mainly due to non-utilisation of Rs 27.5 crore, received for cluster university.The funds were allocated under three major heads, new creation (35 per cent), renovation (35 per cent) and equipment (30 per cent) and besides the HPU, 46 colleges, covered under RUSA, were provided funds.
- A minimum of Rs 2 crore was sanctioned for 46 colleges for infrastructure development, of which 23 colleges have spent 90 per cent funds while remaining 23 colleges utilised 75 per cent. Over 100 smart classroom and 150 labs have come up in these colleges and the HPU. As a result, the number of NAAC accredited colleges has gone up from 12 to 32.
- Thirty college campuses have been provided the WiFi facility, multipurpose conference halls have been constructed and equipment for sports, music and books for libraries have been provided.
- The HPU has exhausted Rs 17 crore of Rs 20 crore and taken up various activities like adding floor to girl hostel, renovation of toilets.
INTERNATIONAL
- Nobel prize in literature 2018 cancelled after sexual assault scandal
- The Swedish Academy has said no Nobel prize for literature will be awarded this year.
- For the first time since 1949, the secretive jury that hands out the world’s most prestigious literary prize will not unveil a winner this autumn, instead revealing two laureates in 2019.
- At the root of the institution’s unprecedented crisis are a raft of wide-ranging allegations against Jean-Claude Arnault, a photographer and leading cultural figure in Sweden, who is married to Katarina Frostenson, an academy member and author.
· Google Grants $3 Million For E-Learning, Teachers In India
- Google’s philanthropic arm Google.org announced $3 million in grants for teacher training and educational content creation in India.
- The organisation committed $1 million to TheTeacherApp to help them reach 5,00,000 teachers in two years, besides a $2-million grant and technical assistance from YouTube to the Central Square Foundation.
· India ranks fourth in Asia-pacific
- INDIA ranked fourth out of 25 nations in the Asia-pacific region on an index that measures their overall power, with the country being pegged as a “giant of the future”, but trails behind in indicators of defence networks and economic relationships.
- A country’s overall power is its weighted average across eight measures of power — economic resources, military capability, resilience, future trends, diplomatic influence, economic relationships, defence networks, and cultural influence.
- Among the key findings from the inaugural index are that the US remains the pre-eminent power in Asia while China, the emerging superpower, is rapidly closing in.
- India is ranked fourth on the parameters economic resources, military capability, diplomatic influence and fifth on resilience.
- It scores well on the parameters of cultural influence and and future trends, ranking third in both. However, it scores low on the measure of economic relationships, ranking 7th and in defence networks, ranking 10th.
· India inks $200 mn. WB loan for nutrition mission
ð India signed an agreement with the World Bank for a $200 million loan for implementing the National Nutrition Mission across 315 districts of the country.
ð Approved by the Union Cabinet last year, the mission aims at reaching 10 crore beneficiaries, mainly children upto the age of six years, pregnant women and lactating mothers and adolescent girls. The programme will be implemented in three phases between 2017 and 2020 across all districts of the country.
ð The mission targets a 2% reduction in both under-nutrition and low birth weight per annum. It also aims to bring down anaemia among young children, women and adolescent girls by 3% per year until 2020.
ð The government will also strive to reduce the prevalence of stunting from the current level of 38.4% (as per the National Family Health Survey 4) to 25% by 2022.
ð The National Nutrition Mission has an approved budget of ₹9046.17 crore. The total contribution of the Centre will be ₹2,849.54 crore and nearly ₹1,700 crore will be contributed by the State governments. The remaining amount will be funded through the government’s tie-up with multilateral agencies such as the World Bank.
NATIONAL
- Geographic information system technology to aid in Ganga clean-up
ð In 15 months time, Survey of India, the country’s principal mapping agency, will map the entire stretch of the Ganga using geographic information system (GIS) technology and provide high-resolution maps to the government.
ð It will help river cleaning authorities in getting minute details of sewage and effluent discharge outlets and identify pollution hot-spots up to 10 km on both sides of the river.
ð Since the project will map sewage outlets and other discharges from all units (industrial, commercial and others) from the source to the public drainage network, it will help in monitoring of polluting sources and quicken the process of taking appropriate action.
· HRD Ministry notifies 75 National Resource Centres
ð The Ministry of Human Resource Development has launched a major and unique initiative of online professional development of 1.5 million higher education faculty using the MOOCs (Massive online open course) platform SWAYAM.
ð In the first phase, 75 discipline-specific National Resource Centres have been identified which are tasked to prepare online training material with focus on latest developments in the discipline, new & emerging trends, pedagogical improvements and methodologies for transacting revised curriculum.
ð Under this initiative, all in-service teachers, irrespective of their subject and seniority will have an enabling opportunity to keep abreast of the latest developments in their disciplines through the technology based online refresher course.
ð HRD Ministry Launches Initiatives for Online Professional Development Using SWAYAM
ð Human Resource Development Ministry launched a major and unique initiative of online professional development of 1.5 million higher education faculty using the Massive Open Online Courses platform SWAYAM.
ð In the first phase, 75 discipline-specific National Resource Centres (NRCs) have been identified.
ð National Resource Centres are tasked to prepare online training material with focus on new and emerging trends, pedagogical improvements and methodologies for transacting revised curriculum.