• Recently, the Steering Committee of the Ken-Betwa Link Project (SC-KBLP) conducted its second meeting.
• Members from the states of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, as well as representatives from the NITI Aayog and different central ministries, attended the conference.

KEY POINTS:

• The Ken-Betwa link project, is crucial for the water security and socioeconomic development of the Bundelkhand region, should be implemented in a time-bound manner using state-of-the-art technologies and know-how while properly taking care of R&R for project affected people and conservation of the region, in particular the landscape-dependent species of the Panna Tiger Reserve.
• Deliberations on the implementation of an integrated landscape management plan for Greater Panna prepared by the Wildlife Institute of India.
• It was also proposed to constitute a Technical Advisory Group for KBLP to review and advise the Authority on various planning and technical matters.
• An R&R Committee to monitor the implementation of R&R plan in transparent and time bound manner was proposed to be constituted.
• A Greater Panna Landscape council was also proposed to be constituted for implementation of Landscape Management Plan (LMP) and Environment Management Plan (EMP) of the project.

Ken Betwa (ILR) Project Details

• It is a project proposed to transfer excess water from the River Ken to the Betwa basin through the use of a concrete canal. The project aims to provide irrigation to the Bundelkhand region, which is one of the worst drought-affected areas in India.
• The beneficiary states are Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.
• It will meet the irrigation purposes, drinking water, and electricity needs of 6 districts in both states.
• The proposed concrete canal would be 221 km long. It will pass through Jhansi, Banda, and Mahoba districts of UP and Chhatarpur, Panna, and Tikamgarh districts of MP.
• A tripartite Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the Centre and the governments of UP and MP for the project.
• Nearly 8,650 hectares of forest land including part of Panna National Parkin Madhya Pradesh will be submerged if the project were to become a reality.

• Union Minister of State for Consumer Affairs, Food, and Public Distribution Ashwini Kumar Choubey explained in a written response to a question in the Lok Sabha that an E-Commerce entity must ensure that the name and address of the manufacturer, packer, or importer, the Maximum Retail Price (MRP), the nation of origin, the common or generic name of the commodity, and the Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodities) Rules 2011 under the Legal Metrology Act, 2009 are all included.
• This is to ensure that the consumer is taking an informed and conscious decision based on the declaration of the product on the E-Commerce platform.
• The Legal Metrology Division, Department of Consumer Affairs, has issued 38 notices between 16 October 2020 and 31 December 2020, 232 notices between 1 January 2021 and 31 December 2021, and 178 notices between 1 January 2022 and 11 July 2022 for declaration violations by e-commerce companies.
• An amount of about Rs. 77, 90,500 has been realised from e-commerce companies in the form of compounding fees.
• When the 2011 Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodities) Rules are broken, state governments are also permitted to initiate enforcement action.
• Recently, the Union govt. has amended theLegal Metrology (Packaged Commodities) 2011 Rules. 

About The Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodities), (Second Amendment) Rules 2022

• It has allowed theelectronic products to declare certain mandatory declarations through the QR Code for a period of one year, if not declared in the package itself.
• Earlier, all the pre-packaged commodities including the electronic products were required to declare all the mandatory declarations as per theLegal Metrology (Packaged Commodities), Rules 2011 on the packag
• The amendment will allow the industry to declare the information in digital form through the QR Code.
• It will allow important declarations to be declared effectively on the label in the package while the other descriptive information can be conveyed to the Consumer through the QR Code.

• According to the External Affairs Minister Jaishankar, that India is among the top five countries that have invested in the African continent.
• While addressing the 17th CII-EXIM Bank Conclave on India-Africa Growth Partnership, S. Jaishankar said that with cumulative investments at $73.9 billion from 1996-2021, India is among the top five investors in Africa.
• India’s bilateral trade with Africa has now reached $89.5 billion in 2021-22 compared with $56 billion the previous year.
• Notably, through the Duty-Free Tariff Preference (DFTP) Scheme that extends duty free access to 98.2 per cent of India’s total tariff lines, India has opened its market to African countries. So far 33 LDC African nations have been entitled to get benefits under this scheme.
• The African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement (AfCFTA) which was commenced in 2021 would be helpful to Indian companies to enhance and intensify the business footprint in Africa.

What is African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA)?

• AfCFTA aims to create a single continental marketfor products and services, with free movement of people and capital, paving the way for the Continental Customs Union and the African Customs Union to be established faster.
• The preliminary work on the AfCFTA focuses on incremental tariff reductions,non-tariff barriers, supply networks, and dispute resolution.
• It creates the world’s largest free-trade zonesince the World Trade Organization was founded in
• AfCFTA will have a worldwide influence that is becoming increasingly reliant on African markets and commodities.
• It is headquartered in Accra, Ghana.

• The Andhra Pradesh State Wildlife Department has kick-started the first-ever survey of blackbucks along a stretch of islands in the Godavari between Dowleswaram and Yanam with the goal of drawing up a conservation plan to protect the endangered species.
• The survey was mooted in the wake of scores of blackbucks getting stranded on the islands that have been hit by the Godavari floods.
• The islands surrounded by the branches of the Godavari, such as the Gowthami, Vasista, Vainteya and Vridha Gowthami, in Konaseema and East Godavari districts are a major habitat for blackbucks, which roam across the region close to human habitations. There have been instances of blackbucks getting poached downstream of Dowleswaram.
• Of the many islands that are home to the animal, Bobbarlanka, located downstream Dowleswaram barrage, is home to a huge number of blackbucks, where they can be sighted all through the year.
• In the islands of the Godavari, co-existence of local communities with the blackbuck has been ensuring the safety of the species.
• Hunting of the blackbuck attracts penal action under Schedule-1 of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972.

• Chief Minister inaugurated vehicle location tracking device, emergency panic button system and Command Control Centre of the Transport Department for the public from Peterhoff, Shimla
• It will provide prompt and accurate information regarding the vehicle equipped with this device at the time of any emergency.
• As many as 9,423 vehicles have been connected to this system. Complete details of vehicles and their movement in the last one year would be available at the monitoring centre.
• When the panic button is pressed, a signal would be received through satellite to 112 (emergency support) and the person in distress would be connected. An alert to the police would also be sent.
• Cent per cent concession was given on token tax, special road tax and passengers goods tax to stage carriage, contract carriage and buses to educational institutions from April 1, 2020, till September 30, 2021, besides other concessions to the tune of Rs 164 crore.
• HP has connected 9,423 vehicles to this system. Vehicles’ one-year movement record will be there at monitoring centre.

• The Central Government will provide a financial assistance of Rs 1,600 crore through the World Bank (WB) for the Himachal Pradesh Power Sector Development Programme.
• According to the spokesperson for the Directorate of Energy of Himachal, that after including the state equity, the total programme would cost around Rs 2,000 crore.
• The WB funding under the programme is expected to be available by early next year, and its duration will be five years, starting from 2023 to 2028.
• The objective of the programme is to undertake holistic power sector reforms and pave the way for improvements in renewable energy integration in the state.
• Efforts will be made for the promotion of integrated resource planning to allow comprehensive planning of the power sector, piloting demand response management, improving technical utilisation of the existing hydropower assets to facilitate increased integration with other sources of renewable energy and establishing a single desk for efficient trading of power.
• These interventions would allow the state to maximise the revenue earned from the sale of energy through renewable balancing capacity.
• The programme also aims to install new capacities in solar generation of about 200 MW, through the HPPCL and HIMURJA.
• The programme will also focus on strengthening the power network within the state – at transmission by the HPPTCL and in 13 towns at the distribution level by the HPSEBL.
• An upgrade of the systems of the State Load Dispatch Centre will further allow better management of power demand and supply.
• Collectively, these interventions will ensure improved transfer of power within the state by improving reliability and quality of supply.

Target areas

• The key result areas that will be targeted are improvements in utilisation of the state’s power sector resources (hydro and solar), improvements in reliability of the state’s grid at transmission and distribution levels.

• The Durand Cup football tournament will be embracing a multi-city format and a bigger selection of teams in its 131st edition, which will be kicking off from August 16 with the most popular contest of Indian football – the Kolkata derby.
• The tournament, jointly organised by Indian Army and Government of West Bengal, started a month­long promotion campaign  with a colourful ‘Trophy Tour’ initiative.
• As the participation list stands now, there will be 20 teams playing this time with all the 11 teams from the Indian Super League joining the contest.
• The three trophies presented to the winners of the tournament — the original Durand Cup, the President’s Cup and the Shimla Trophy — will travel from Kolkata to Guwahati on July 21 before moving to Imphal on July 24.

• India has categorically stated that no variety of Genetically Modified (GM) rice has been approved for commercial cultivation in India, and it has not exported any GM rice, Narendra Singh Tomar, Union Minister for Agriculture, said in a written reply in Lok Sabha while replying to a query on whether GM rice was discovered in a consignment exported to EU in 2021.

HISTORY

• The discovery of 500 tonnes of genetically modified (GM) rice in a consignment that India exported to the European Union countries in June 2021.
• Several batches of rice flour were marketed in several European countries, as well as in the United States, Iraq, Mauritius, Qatar, Dubai (United Arab Emirates), Lebanon, Senegal and Turkey.
• They were recalled for use in the EU after European Commission Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) identified illegalities in food products upon a check.

 PRESENT STATUS

• India is yet to approve commercial cultivation of a genetically modified food crop. It has, however, cultivated multiple GM rice varieties at various stages of confined field trials.
• The Coalition for GM Free India, in its letter, warned that such trials have led to “contamination and leaks” that have made their way to the food chain.
• The letter, written by a paddy farmer from Kerala, demanded that an inter-ministerial, inter-agency body be set up with the GEAC to facilitate creation of a body to look into illegal GM imports.
• It also suggested that field trials should be banned to avoid any contamination of food and seed supply chains.
• India has approved commercial cultivation of only one GM crop, Bt Cotton.

• Mission Buniyaad was started during the summer holidays to help bridge the learning gaps caused by COVID ¬induced lockdowns.
• According to the Delhi government, that under Mission Buniyaad, held between April and June, students of government and Municipal Corporation of Delhi schools have shown 20%¬-30% improvement in literacy and numeracy skills.
• The government plans to extend the scheme.
• The State Council of Educational Research and Training, Delhi, held a joint orientation programme on Mission Buniyaad for 2,700 heads of government schools under the Directorate of Education and the MCD to discuss the achievements and learnings from the previous phase of Mission Buniyaad.
• Foundational skills It also focused on drawing a road map to further strengthen the foundational learning skills of students.
• The programme of the Delhi government concentrates on building the foundational skills of students in Hindi and English literacy as well as mathematics.

• Google celebrated acclaimed Indian poet Balamani Amma’s 113th birth anniversary with a special doodle dedicated to her. She continues to be known as the ‘amma’ (mother) and ‘muthassi’ (grandmother), of Malayalam poetry.
• Amma was the recipient of various awards and honours like the Padma Bhushan, India’s third highest civilian honour, in 1987; the Sahitya Akademi Award for Muthassi in 1965; the Saraswati Samman for Nivedyam in 1995, among others.
• Her other well-known works were Amma, Mazhuvinte Katha (The Story of the Axe), and Sandhya. Amma had no formal education and was greatly influenced by her maternal uncle and his library.
• She published more than 20 anthologies of poems, along with other works including translations.
• Amma’s other influences include Vallathol Narayana Menon, one of the triumvirate poets of modern Malayalam, and Nalapat Narayana Menon. She wrote an elegy for the latter, Lokantharangalil.
• Amma has in turn served as an inspiration to later generations of Malayalam poets, a prominent example being Akkitham Achuthan Namboothiri.
• The Kochi International Book Fair gives a cash prize for writers in her name, the Balamani Amma Award.