PUNJAB
- Govt to fine-tune health scheme to benefit more
- Punjab is likely to dovetail the Modi government’s National Health Protection Mission (NHPM) with its proposed Universal Health Scheme so that maximum people in the state get the benefit of a cashless health insurance.
- The Central scheme is unlikely to be implemented in its present form as it allows for cashless health cover to less than 15 lakh beneficiaries, which is one-fourth of the total families in the state. Once implemented, all beneficiaries will get an insurance cover of Rs 5 lakh.
- Official sources say that it was decided to extend the scheme to 45 lakh other families, who do not meet the criteria of Socio Economic Caste Census (SECC) of 2011, from the state’s own resources. The Central scheme covers just poor deprived rural families. It is yet to be decided whether some part of the insurance premium is to be recovered from the 45 lakh families.
- In the Ayushman Bharat, the Union government will be funding 60 per cent of the premium while the state government will bear the remaining 40 per cent cost of the premium. However, this 60 per cent funding will come only for the 15 lakh beneficiaries identified as poor.
- The earlier health insurance scheme, Bhagat Puran Singh Sehat Bima Yojana, started by the previous government, covered 16 lakh families — all those covered under the Atta- Dal scheme. This, however, provided a cover of just Rs 50,000.
INTERNATIONAL
- Nobel prize in literature 2018 cancelled after sexual assault scandal
- The Swedish Academy has said no Nobel prize for literature will be awarded this year.
- For the first time since 1949, the secretive jury that hands out the world’s most prestigious literary prize will not unveil a winner this autumn, instead revealing two laureates in 2019.
- At the root of the institution’s unprecedented crisis are a raft of wide-ranging allegations against Jean-Claude Arnault, a photographer and leading cultural figure in Sweden, who is married to Katarina Frostenson, an academy member and author.
· 
Google Grants $3 Million For E-Learning, Teachers In India
- Google’s philanthropic arm Google.org announced $3 million in grants for teacher training and educational content creation in India.
- The organisation committed $1 million to TheTeacherApp to help them reach 5,00,000 teachers in two years, besides a $2-million grant and technical assistance from YouTube to the Central Square Foundation.
· India ranks fourth in Asia-pacific
- INDIA ranked fourth out of 25 nations in the Asia-pacific region on an index that measures their overall power, with the country being pegged as a “giant of the future”, but trails behind in indicators of defence networks and economic relationships.
- A country’s overall power is its weighted average across eight measures of power — economic resources, military capability, resilience, future trends, diplomatic influence, economic relationships, defence networks, and cultural influence.
- Among the key findings from the inaugural index are that the US remains the pre-eminent power in Asia while China, the emerging superpower, is rapidly closing in.
- India is ranked fourth on the parameters economic resources, military capability, diplomatic influence and fifth on resilience.
- It scores well on the parameters of cultural influence and and future trends, ranking third in both. However, it scores low on the measure of economic relationships, ranking 7th and in defence networks, ranking 10th.
· India inks $200 mn. WB loan for nutrition mission
ð India signed an agreement with the World Bank for a $200 million loan for implementing the National Nutrition Mission across 315 districts of the country.
ð Approved by the Union Cabinet last year, the mission aims at reaching 10 crore beneficiaries, mainly children upto the age of six years, pregnant women and lactating mothers and adolescent girls. The programme will be implemented in three phases between 2017 and 2020 across all districts of the country.
ð The mission targets a 2% reduction in both under-nutrition and low birth weight per annum. It also aims to bring down anaemia among young children, women and adolescent girls by 3% per year until 2020.
ð The government will also strive to reduce the prevalence of stunting from the current level of 38.4% (as per the National Family Health Survey 4) to 25% by 2022.
ð The National Nutrition Mission has an approved budget of ₹9046.17 crore. The total contribution of the Centre will be ₹2,849.54 crore and nearly ₹1,700 crore will be contributed by the State governments. The remaining amount will be funded through the government’s tie-up with multilateral agencies such as the World Bank.
NATIONAL
- Geographic information system technology to aid in Ganga clean-up
ð In 15 months time, Survey of India, the country’s principal mapping agency, will map the entire stretch of the Ganga using geographic information system (GIS) technology and provide high-resolution maps to the government.
ð It will help river cleaning authorities in getting minute details of sewage and effluent discharge outlets and identify pollution hot-spots up to 10 km on both sides of the river.
ð Since the project will map sewage outlets and other discharges from all units (industrial, commercial and others) from the source to the public drainage network, it will help in monitoring of polluting sources and quicken the process of taking appropriate action.
· HRD Ministry notifies 75 National Resource Centres
ð The Ministry of Human Resource Development has launched a major and unique initiative of online professional development of 1.5 million higher education faculty using the MOOCs (Massive online open course) platform SWAYAM.
ð In the first phase, 75 discipline-specific National Resource Centres have been identified which are tasked to prepare online training material with focus on latest developments in the discipline, new & emerging trends, pedagogical improvements and methodologies for transacting revised curriculum.
ð Under this initiative, all in-service teachers, irrespective of their subject and seniority will have an enabling opportunity to keep abreast of the latest developments in their disciplines through the technology based online refresher course.
ð HRD Ministry Launches Initiatives for Online Professional Development Using SWAYAM
ð Human Resource Development Ministry launched a major and unique initiative of online professional development of 1.5 million higher education faculty using the Massive Open Online Courses platform SWAYAM.
ð In the first phase, 75 discipline-specific National Resource Centres (NRCs) have been identified.
ð National Resource Centres are tasked to prepare online training material with focus on new and emerging trends, pedagogical improvements and methodologies for transacting revised curriculum.
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