Himachal Pradesh Affairs
Will be tough for new Himachal Govt to mobilise funds
The new government will find it difficult to raise Rs 16,000 crore for paying arrear dues to its employees. The state is under a debt burden of over Rs 70,000 crore.
The counting of votes for the Assembly will be held on December 8. The focus of the new government will be on raising funds to pay salaries to employees and maintain the pace of development works.
Himachal is keen that the state is compensated for the GST compensation in view of the shortfall in the GST collection. This has resulted in an annual loss of Rs 4,000 crore to the State Government, which is a huge amount considering that Himachal has a few revenue generation sectors.
The grant of old pension scheme (OPS) to 1.16 lakh employees, at present covered under the new pension scheme (NPS), will entail an annual expenditure of almost Rs 710 crore, besides a one-time amount of almost Rs 2,000 crore.
National and International Affairs
Startup India launches Startup applications for MAARG Portal
The Department for Promotion of and Internal Trade (DPIIT), under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, has launched a call for startup applications for registration on the MAARG portal, the National Mentorship Platform by Startup India.
To further boost the Indian startup ecosystem, currently ranked 3rd largest globally, Startup India is focused on catalysing the startup culture and building a strong and inclusive ecosystem for innovation and Entrepreneurship in India. In this context, MAARG portal – Mentorship, Advisory, Assistance, Resilience and Growth, is a one stop platform to facilitate mentorship for startups across diverse sectors, functions, stages, geographies, and backgrounds. The objectives of the MAARG portal are
To provide sector focused guidance, handholding, and support to startups throughout their lifecycle
To establish a formalized and structured platform that facilitates intelligent matchmaking between the mentors and their respective mentees
To facilitate efficient and expert mentorship for startups and build an outcome-oriented mechanism that allows timely tracking of the mentor-mentee engagements
International Year of Millets (IYOM) 2023 will provide an opportunity to globally promote millets as the nutritious cereals
The Union <a href="https://exam.pscnotes.com/Agriculture-notes-for-state-psc-exams”>Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Minister Shri Narendra Singh Tomar has said the International Year of (IYOM) 2023 will provide an opportunity to increase global production, efficient processing and better use of Crop Rotation and promote millets as a major component of the food basket. Shri Tomar said that on the initiative of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, the United Nations has declared the year 2023 as the International Year of Millet (IYOM).
Shri Tomar said the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare is working in mission mode to increase millet production and consumption in collaboration with other Central Ministries, all State Governments and other stakeholder organizations.
India has more than 500 startups working in the millet value-added chain, while Indian Institute of Millets Research has incubated 250 startups under RKVY-Raftar.
CW launches Digital Shakti 4.0 focussing on making women digitally skilled and aware
The <a href="https://exam.pscnotes.com/national-commission-for-Women“>National Commission for Women (NCW) launched the fourth phase of Digital Shakti Campaign, a pan-India project on digitally empowering and skilling women and girls in the cyberspace,yesterday. In line with its commitment to create safe spaces for women and girls online, Digital Shakti 4.0 is focused on making women digitally skilled and aware to stand up against any illegal/inappropriate activity online. NCW launched it in collaboration with CyberPeace Foundation and Meta.
The launch was followed by an interactive panel discussion on Safe Spaces Online Combatting Cyber-enabled Human Trafficking & Combatting Other forms of Online Violence in order to provide keen opinions from experts from the Industry, Government, and Academia to address the issue of online women safety from all tangents and provide whole approach to ensure better women safety online.
Indonesia Just Energy Transition Partnership Launched at G20
The new Indonesia Just Energy Transition PARTNERSHIP (JETP) will mobilise $20 billion [17bn] over the next three to five years to accelerate a just energy transition.
The UK stands ready to support delivery of the partnership, including through a $1 billion guarantee.1
The Indonesia JETP launch builds on momentum of other JETP progress during the COP27 Summit in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt.
The agreement focuses on achieving this transition in a way that considers all workers, communities and societal groups affected directly or indirectly by an energy transition away from coal, and helps to ensure that they are supported through concrete commitments.