Ministry of Tourism to organise National Conference of State Tourism Ministers from 18th to 20th September 2022 in Dharamshala

• The conference is being organised by the Ministry of Tourism from September 18-20 to discuss issues related to development of tourism in the country, officials said.
• The conference in Dharamshala will be attended by central ministers, tourism ministers from various states and UTs, governors, administrators and seniors officials of the central government, state governments and heads of tourism and hospitality associations.

Shri Piyush Goyal concludes fruitful visit to Saudi Arabia

• The Strategic Partnership Council was instituted in October, 2019 during the visit of the Prime Minister of India to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and has two main pillars i.e. Political, Security, Social and Cultural Committee and the Committee on Economy and Investments.
• Streamlining efforts to realize the announcement made by His Royal Highness Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman, during his visit to India in February 2019, of investments worth USD 100 Billion in India.
• Endorsement of the 41 areas of cooperation identified by the technical teams under the 4 broad domains of Agriculture & Food Security; Energy; Technology & IT; and Industry & Infrastructure.
• Agreement to undertake implementation of the priority projects in a time bound manner. Priority areas of cooperation include:
  • Collaboration in digital fintech sector through operationalization of UPI and Rupay Card in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
  • Re-affirmation of continued cooperation in joint projects including the West coast refinery, LNG infrastructure investment and development of strategic petroleum storage facilities in India

Shri Sarbananda Sonowal launches multiple projects for development of Bogibeel, Assam

• The Two floating jetties at Bogibeel in Dibrugarh district and Guijan in Tinsukia district will be constructed as state-of-art terminals using the most advanced & updated technology.
• Both the jetties are being constructed by IWAI over the National Waterways - 2 (NW-2), popularly known as River Brahmaputra.
• He also inaugurated Bogibeel Riverfront Passenger Jetty which has been developed by the Northeast Frontier Railways (NFR) as part of Riverfront Development near the Bogibeel bridge.
• The Bogibeel Bridge is a combined road and rail bridge over the Brahmaputra River in the northeastern Indian state of Assam between Dhemaji district and Dibrugarh district.

FAO Side Event on International Year of Millets 2023 Held During the Ninth Session

• The side event on IYOM-2023 focussed on celebrating Millets’ farmers.
• To bring back millets and create domestic, and global demand and to provide nutritional food to the people, the Government of India decided to mark the National Year of Millets in 2018.
• In 2021, India proposed to United Nations for declaring 2023 as the International Year of Millets (IYOM).
• The proposal of India got support from 72 countries and United Nation''s General Assembly (UNGA) declared 2023 as the International Year of Millets.

Typhoon lashes central Japan, killing at least two

• Typhoon Nanmadol, one of the biggest storms to hit Japan in years, killed at least two people and brought ferocious winds and record rainfall to the west of the country, causing transport disruptions and forcing manufacturers to suspend operations.
• Nanmadol made landfall near Kagoshima city late on Sunday before battering the western island of Kyushu and roaring onto the main island of Honshu on Monday morning.
• A typhoon is a mature tropical cyclone that develops between 180° and 100°E in the Northern Hemisphere.
• This region is referred to as the Northwestern Pacific Basin, and is the most active tropical cyclone basin on Earth, accounting for almost one-third of the world''s annual tropical cyclones.

Numaligarh Refinery Limited plans to invest over Rs 35,000 crore in the next five years

• The Numaligarh Refinery is located at Morangi, Golaghat district, Assam.
• Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NRL) is a Category-I Mini Ratna PSU of Government of India.
• It is a group company of Oil India Limited (earlier subsidiary of BPCL) and the present shareholding pattern of NRL is OIL-80.16%, Govt. of Assam (GoA)-15.47% and Engineers India Ltd (EIL) – 4.37%.
• In 2019, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs approved plans to increase the refinery''s capacity to 9 million metric tonnes per year.

GeM surpassed milestone of One Lakh Crore rupees of procurement value in last fiscal

• The GeM Seller Samvad has been held in Mumbai wherein numerous beneficiaries spoke about how their business has grown overwhelmingly with the help of the online portal.
• The Government e Marketplace is an online platform for public procurement in India. The initiative was launched in 2016 by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
• GeM has facilitated over one crore transactions valued at over 3.02 Lakh Crore Rupees. Notably, the portal had surpassed the milestone of One Lakh Crore rupees of procurement value in the last fiscal.
• The portal has 62 thousand registered government buyers and 50.90 lakh sellers, from large conglomerates to MSMEs and women Self Help groups. Currently, GeM has about 300 service categories and over ten thousand product categories.

The controversy over NAAC’s system for assessing higher education

• The National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC), which carries out quality checks or assessments of Indian Higher-level Educational Institutions (HEIs), courted controversy recently over the rating of the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda and allegations of bribery in the process.
• The NAAC, an autonomous body under the University Grants Commission (UGC), assesses and certifies HEIs with gradings as part of accreditation.
• Through a multi-layered process, a higher education institution learns whether it meets the standards of quality set by the evaluator in terms of curriculum, faculty, infrastructure, research, and other parameters. The ratings of institutions range from A++ to C. If an institution is graded D, it means it is not accredited.
• There are 1,043 universities and 42,343 colleges listed on the portal of the All India Survey on Higher Education.
• As per the latest data from June 21, there were 406 universities and 8,686 colleges that were NAAC-accredited.
• Among the states, Maharashtra accounts for the highest number of accredited colleges at 1,869 – more than twice as many as Karnataka’s 914, the second highest. Tamil Nadu has the most accredited universities at 43.

Govt to set up panel to study status of Scheduled Castes converts to Christianity and Islam

• Under Article 341 of the Constitution, the President may “specify the castes, races or tribes or parts of or groups within castes, races or tribes which shall…be deemed to be Scheduled Castes”.
• The first order under this provision was issued in 1950, and covered only Hindus. Following demands from the Sikh community, an order was issued in 1956, including Sikhs of Dalit origin among the beneficiaries of the SC quota. In 1990, the government acceded to a similar demand from Buddhists of Dalit origin.
• Ranganath Misra Commission, which submitted its report in May 2007, recommended that SC status should be “completely de-linked…from religion and…Scheduled Castes [should be made] fully religion-neutral like…Scheduled Tribes”. Its recommendation was not accepted.

To curb use of chemical fertilisers, Govt to give nod to PM PRANAM

• The proposed scheme intends to reduce the subsidy burden on chemical fertilisers, which is expected to increase to Rs 2.25 lakh crore in 2022-2023, w`hich is 39% higher than the previous year’s figure of Rs 1.62 lakh crore.
• The scheme will not have a separate budget and will be financed by the “savings of existing fertiliser subsidy” under schemes run by the Department of fertilisers.
• Further, 50% subsidy savings will be passed on as a grant to the state that saves the money and that 70% of the grant provided under the scheme can be used for asset creation related to technological adoption of alternate fertilisers and alternate fertiliser production units at village, block and district levels.
• The remaining 30% grant money can be used for incentivising farmers, panchayats, farmer producer organisations and self-help groups that are involved in the reduction of fertiliser use and awareness generation.