PUNJAB

· Grain-rich Punjab woos food processing sector

ð Considering its high foodgrain production, Punjab is pushing itself as the ideal destination to attract the food processing industry, as it gets ready to host the Invest Punjab Summit in first week of December.

ð For this, the state government is rolling out a red carpet for new investors in the sector. The government is setting up common facility centres in Amritsar, Abohar, Talwandi Sabo and Hoshiarpur to support companies investing in food parks in the state. As of now, three mega food parks are coming up in Fazilka, Ladhowal (Ludhiana) and Phagwara.

ð With the agrarian sector crisis continuing, the only way for the state to grow economically is to give value addition to its agriculture produce by promoting the food processing sector. Punjab is not just the biggest contributor of wheat (17 per cent) and paddy (11 per cent) to the Central pool, but is also among the largest producers of fruits and vegetables like peach, pear, muskmelon and peas and radish. The state also leads in the production of milk and honey.

INTERNATIONAL

Bahrain conferred PM Modi “The King Hamad Order of the Renaissance award

Prime Minister Narendra Modi held talks with King of Bahrain Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa in Manama on various bilateral and regional issues.

The two leaders discussed ways to strengthen the friendship between India and Bahrain, with a focus on business relations and cultural exchange.

The two countries signed a string of Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) in the fields culture, space, solar energy and RuPay card.

Mr Modi was also honoured with “The King Hamad Order of the Renaissance.”

· International dialogue on South-South and Triangular Cooperation addressed by Commerce & Industry Minister

Union Minister of Commerce & Industry and Railways, Shri PiyushGoyal addressed the International dialogue on South-South and Triangular CooperationThe event is held in New Delhi. The World Trade Organisation(WTO) is the key topic addressed
South-South and Triangular Cooperation organized by Research and Information System (RIS) and the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation(UNOSSC).
The member countries of WTO to engage in rule-based, transparent, and non-discriminatory governance required for free trade in a non-discriminatory manner, keeping in mind the interests of member countries with disparate (essentially different in kind) GDP.
The world economy is likely to fall into a recession followed by the member countries made of trade concession
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) for the target year 2030 discussed.
A recession is marked by two consecutive quarters of decline in a country’s gross domestic product (GDP).
Recession result in unemployment. The yield curve indicated the recession which financial crisis similar to the year 2008 is expected.
The term South-South cooperation is used by policymakers and academics to describe the exchange of resources, technology, and knowledge between developing countries, also known as countries of the Global South as it is a broad framework of collaboration among countries in the south.

NATIONAL

PM Modi announced to celebrate September as a month of nutrition

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced to celebrate September as a month of nutrition.

In his Mann Ki Baat programme, Mr Modi laid emphasis on creating awareness to fight malnutrition among children, particularly the girl child.

Last year, Gujarat Government launched a pilot project, Poshan Abhiyan which is a statewide mission to eradicate malnutrition among children.

Chief Minister Vijay Rupani had also launched ‘Purna’ project to eliminate malnutrition among the girls in the age group of 14 to 18.

PURNA project is also known as Prevention of under Nutrition and Reduction of Nutritional Anaemia among Adolescent Girls.

CBDT says small start-ups with turnover up to Rs 25 cr to continue to get a promised tax holiday

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has clarified that small start-ups with turnover up to 25 crore rupees will continue to get the promised tax holiday as specified in the section of the Income Tax Act.

The Act provides a deduction for 100 per cent of the income of an eligible start-up for 3 years out of 7 years from the year of its incorporation.

According to the Finance Ministry, the CBDT also clarified that all the start-ups recognised by Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade-DPIIT which fulfilled the conditions specified in the DPIIT notification did not automatically become eligible for deduction.

· Gujarat topped the CWMI 2.0 report in water management

Gujarat topped thesecond Round of Composite Water Management Index (CWMI 2.0). It was released by NITI Aayog in New Delhi. It measures the performance of states on a set of water indicators. The move comes at a time when various states across the country are facing a shortage in groundwater. The index assesses the performance of States on a comprehensive set of water indicators and reports relative performance in 2017-18 as well as trends from previous years (2015-16 & 2016-17).
Composite Water Management Index was released for the first time in 2018 to instill a sense of cooperative and competitive federalism among the states. It was the first attempt to create a pan-India set of metrics that measured different dimensions of water management and use across the lifecycle of water.

· MoEF is to relax lease rent for wind power projects

The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate change has announced that it is to relax the mandatory charging of lease rent of 30,000/- per Mega Watt (MW)for wind power projects.

The step by the Ministry aimsto boost investment in wind power projects. It will also help in providing wind power at a cheaper rate. The government aims to meet maximum energy requirement by tapping renewal energy resources. It also plans to achieve the target of clean energy in a time-bound manner, various policies and regulations are being constantly updated.

The Ministry is working towards the establishment of wind power project over forest land, the existing procedurerequires payment of mandatory charges for compensatory afforestation andNet Present Value (NPV). Additional cost for generation of clean energy through wind power will escalate the per-unit cost of power at the consumer level.

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