HIMACHAL PRADESH
● Solar fencing scheme benefits 325 Una farmers
Una district, also known as the food bowl of the state, cultivates food grains over 55,000 hectares of land, most of which is under threat from stray cattle and wild animals. Day and night, farmers are forced to stay vigilant to protect their crop from being damaged by monkeys, wild boars, blue bulls and stray cattle.
Solar fencing under the Mukhyamantri Khet Sanrakshan Yojana is a combination of metal poles and cables, which get electrically charged with the help of solar power and gives a small amount of electric shock when an animal comes in contact with them. It keeps animals awayfrom the fencing. under the scheme, the agriculture department had facilitated setting up of 109 fencing units during the 2018-19 financial year, protecting 91.24 hectares of cultivable land.
INTERNATIONAL
- Disarmament Week: 24-30 October
Disarmament Week is an annual event that is observed from 24 October to 30 October in various parts of the world.
The observance revolves around raising public awareness of the dangers of the arms race and the need for international disarmament.
An important focus of this week is trying to convince nations to only keep the weapons they need for an adequate police force.
- India and France explore 3rd country projects in Western Indian Ocean region
India and France have taken concrete steps to firm up their strategic partnership in the western Indian Ocean part of their Indo-Pacific strategies, within two months of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s trip to Paris.
They consisting of Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, and Seychelles in the western Indian Ocean currently meeting for the first time in the Reunion Islands (French territory) for exploring economic and development partnership.
India represented by the minister of state for external affairs V Muraleedharan at the meet.
India has longstanding defense partnerships with Mauritius and Seychelles, its defense ties with Comoros and Madagascar are growing as part of India’s Indo-Pacific outreach to ensure peace and stability. Indo-French defense partnership extends to the western part of the Indian Ocean.
NATIONAL
- Govt Accords ‘Maharatna’ Status to Hindustan Petroleum, Power Grid Corp
The government accorded ‘Maharatna’ status to state-owned Hindustan Petroleum and Power Grid Corporation.
Two separate orders to this effect were issued by the Department of Public Enterprises, under the Ministry of Heavy Industry and Public Enterprises.
The grant of Maharatna status to the PSUs will impart enhanced powers to their Boards to take financial decisions.
Total Maharatna CPSEs now :
- Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited
- Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited
- Coal India Limited
- GAIL (India) Limited
- Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited
- Indian Oil Corporation Limited
- NTPC Limited
- Oil & Natural Gas Corporation Limited
- Power Grid Corporation of India Limited
- Steel Authority of India Limited
- Indian Railways to convert 200 saloons into 10 tourist trains to be run by IRCTC
Indian Railways decided to convert 200 saloons into ten luxury tourist trains to be run by the IRCTC in a bid to regulate the use of the colonial era-style carriages and generate additional revenue for the national transporter.
The inspection cars to be exclusively used by railway officials to visit far-flung areas, these saloons comprise two bedrooms, a lounge, a pantry, a toilet, and a kitchen that are built to facilitate the stay for up to five days.The concerns over misuse of these saloons by officials, Railway minister Piyush Goyal given up the use of his ones calling them trappings of a colonial mindset.
The Railway Board prepared a set of instructions for its zones to strictly regulate the number and use of such saloons.The saloons and observation car for zonal general managers, each zone will have two additional carriages for inspection purposes.
Each railway division will have a self-propelled inspection car with windows at both ends.The remaining should be used for premium tourist traffic to earn additional revenue for the railways.