PUNJAB
Piped water for all rural households in Punjab by 2022
To cover rural households with piped water connections, the Punjab government decided to accord first priority to providing functional house tap connections (FHTCs) in the remaining 17.59 lakh households to meet its 2022 target of 100% piped water connectivity.
According to a state cabinet decision, the government would meet the cost of providing FHTCs from the tied grants for water under the 15th Finance Commission. Of the 17.59 lakh yet-to-beconnected households, 7.60 lakh will be covered in 2020-21 and 9.99 lakh in 2021-22. The cabinet also decided to give top priority to Swachh Bharat Mission (Gramin) or SBM (G) Phase II for making all villages in the state Open Defecation Free (ODF)-Plus in the next five years from the allocations available under the tied grants for sanitation under the 15th Finance Commission.
An ODF-Plus village is defined as a village which sustains its ODF status, ensures solid and liquid waste management and is visually clean.
To ensure transparency and proper usage of the 15th Finance Commission grants, the allocations are to be transferred to panchayats in three different bank accounts — for untied grants and for tied grants for water and sanitation components separately.
INTERNATIONAL
International Day of Older Persons: 01 October
International Day of Older Persons is observed globally on 1st October every year.
The year 2020 marks the 75th Anniversary of the United Nations and the 30th Anniversary of the International Day of Older Persons.
The day is an opportunity to highlight the important contributions that older people make to society and raise awareness of the opportunities and challenges of ageing in today’s world.
2020 theme: Pandemics: Do They Change How We Address Age and Ageing?
NATIONAL
India exceeds 140 per day per million tests advised by WHO by more than five times: Health Ministry
India has exceeded the 140 per day per million tests as advised by the World Health Organization by more than five times.
Very high levels of testing lead to early identification, prompt isolation and effective treatment of COVID19 cases.
This has resulted in sustained low Fatality Rate. With higher testing, eventually there is a fall in the positivity rate.
In July 2020, the WHO has advised that a country needs 140 tests per day per million population.
India successfully test-fires BrahMos supersonic cruise missile
India successfully test-fired BrahMos supersonic cruise missile with several indigenous features.
The test firing of the missile was carried out by the Defence Research and Development Organisation, DRDO from Balasore in Odisha.
BrahMos surface-to-surface supersonic cruise missile features indigenous Booster and Airframe Section along with many other ‘Made in India’ sub-systems.
The BrahMos Land-Attack Cruise Missile was cruising at a top speed of Mach 2.8. It is one more major step in enhancing the indigenous content.
The missile weighs around 2.5 tonnes and has a strike range of approximately 300 km.
It is the fastest supersonic cruise missile in the world.
It is based on the Russian P-800 Oniks cruise missile and other similar sea-skimming Russian cruise missile technology.
The name BrahMos is a portmanteau formed from the names of two rivers, the Brahmaputra of India and the Moskva of Russia.
South Eastern Railway launches “Operation My Saheli” for safety of lady passengers
The South Eastern Railways (SER) has launched the project, “Operation my Saheli” to enhance the security of women passengers in the train throughout the entire journey from the originating point to their destinations.
Since 18th September 2020, The pilot version of the project “Operation my Saheli” has been introduced in 3 trains: Howrah-Yesvantpur Duronto Special, Howrah- Ahmedabad Special and Howrah-Mumbai Special.
“Operation my Saheli” is executed under the Framework of “Nirbhaya Fund” and no additional expenditure is provided by the Head of Railways.
Under this a team of Women Sub Inspectors briefed the women passengers on the safety precautions and provided emergency contact numbers.
The team will collect the information such as seat number and contact information of the women passengers and will remain in contact throughout the journey.
Indian Coast Guard Fast Patrol Vessel ICGS ‘Kanaklata Barua’ commissioned in Kolkata
Fast Patrol Vessel (FPV) ICGS ‘Kanaklata Barua’ of the Indian Coast Guard was commissioned at the Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers (GRSE) Ltd in Kolkata.
ICGS Kanaklata Barua is one of the five FPVs built by GRSE, the Defence Public Sector Undertaking, for the Indian Coast Guard and it was delivered on June 9.
The FPVs are medium-range surface vessels with a length of 50 metres, width of 7.5 metres and displacement of around 308 tonnes.
The vessels are designed for a maximum speed of 34 knots with an endurance of more than 1,500 nautical miles.
The entire design of the FPVs has been developed in- house by GRSE as per requirements specified by the Indian Coast Guard.
Kerala tops, Bihar fares worst in child index
Kerala emerged on top while Bihar fared the worst in outcomes linked to health, nutrition and cognitive growth of children in the 0-6 years age group, based on a comparative analysis of public data for 2005-06 and 2015-16. Based on the outcome indicators, the overall India score on a scale of 0-1 adds up to 0.585, far from impressive, though it reflects an improvement of 0.142 over the score of 0.443 in 2005-06.
The findings —Young Child Outcomes Index (YCOI)— are part of the “State of the Young Child in India” report, brought out by civil society organisation Mobile Creches and supported by Bernard Van Leer Foundation.
YCOI takes into account three major components—health, nutrition and cognitive growth— and the respective indicators selected include infant mortality rate, stunting and net attendance at the primary school level. The YCEI is based on indices using data related to various indicators on gender, poverty, health, safe water supply and education.
In YCOI, Tripura has made significant improvement over a decade moving from a score of 0.582 for 2005-06 to 0.761 in 2015-16. Bihar has the lowest score of 0.452 in 2015-16, though up from the abysmally low score for 0.298 in 2005-06.
On the YCEI, Kerala yet again tops the child environment index (0.855), followed by Goa (0.846) and Sikkim (0.819). Arunachal Pradesh has the lowest score with 0.533 followed by Manipur at (0.537) and Jharkhand (0.578).
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