Governance/GSII
Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana - Gramin (PMAYG) Dashboard
 

What's the NEWS

• Union Minister for Rural Development and Panchayati Raj launched the PMAYG Dashboard for stringent monitoring of the implementation of the scheme.
• The dashboard will be used by the Stakeholders of PMAYG for monitoring and managerial purpose.
• However, The Minister asked the officials to make the portal public to make it ''Aam Janta Ka Portal" in reality.

• The dashboard will provide complete transparency in the implementation of the scheme.
• The link of the dashboard should reach from the Sarpanchs of villages to the Members of Parliament of constituencies so that they can monitor the scheme.
• The Block Officer should be given responsibility for providing a link to the dashboard to all elected and non-elected representatives of the block.
• NIC to provide a facility to file grievances on the portal.
• The Dashboard provides End-to-End insights to cater to the analytical and strategic business intelligence needs to cater for the physical and financial progress of the PMAY-G scheme at a glance.
• This Dashboard will allow the user to see, at a glance, an overall situation of PMAYG and will help to get the desired information.

• To achieve the objective of providing "Housing to All" by the year 2024, the Government of India rolled out the rural housing scheme, Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana-Gramin (PMAY-G) with effect from 1st April 2016.
• The program envisages the completion of 2.95 crore PMAY-G houses with all basic amenities by the year 2024.
• As on 21st February 2022, a total of 1.73 crores PMAY-G houses have been completed against the allocated cumulative target of 2.62 crore houses.

• the Government aims at improving the speed and quality of houses construction, ensuring timely release of funds to beneficiaries, direct transfer of funds to beneficiaries' accounts, technical assistance to beneficiaries, stringent monitoring through MIS-AwaasSoft and AwaasApp.
• The Scheme is being implemented and monitored through end to end e-governance solutions, AwaasSoft and AwaasApp.
• AwaasSoft provides functionalities for data entry and monitoring of multiple statistics related to implementation aspects of the scheme.

What's the NEWS

• Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) is participating in ‘Vigyan Sarvatra Pujyate' being held across the country on the occasion of 75thyear of India's Independence, ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav'.

• ‘Vigyan Sarvatra Pujayate' is a pan-India programme to showcase science, technology & innovation from every part of the country during February 22-28, 2022.
• The DRDO is also organising exhibitions on the theme ‘Amrit Mahotsav Science Showcase: Roadmap to 2047' at 16 cities throughout the country.
• Various DRDO products pertaining to different technologies are going to be exhibited.
• This include models of Nag, Man Portable Anti-Tank Guided Missile (MPATGM), Akash, BrahMos, Astra, Pralay, Mission Shakti, Armoured Engineer Reconnaissance Vehicle (AERV), Mareech, 3D Central Acquisition Radar (3D CAR), Electronic Warfare System, Bridge Layer Tank (BLT), etc.
• Technologies on display are retromotor, booster motor, composite rocket motor casing, drop tank, break disk, etc.
• The ‘Amrit Mahotsav Science' also titled ‘Vigyan Sarvatra Pujyate' will put on display our scientific legacy and technology prowess that have helped find solutions to problems in defence, space, health, agriculture, astronomy, and other areas.
• The event is jointly organised by DRDO, Department of Science & Technology (DST), Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR), Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), Department of Space, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) under the aegis of the Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser to the GoI and the Ministry of Culture.

• Government has approved the continuation of Central Sector National Means-cum-Merit Scholarship (NMMSS) over the 15th Finance Commission cycle for a period of five years i.e. from 2021-22 to 2025-26 with financial outlay of Rs. 1827.00 crore with minor modifications in eligibility criteria such as increasing income ceiling from Rs.1.5 lakh per annum to Rs.3.5 lakh per annum and revising the renewal criteria under the scheme.

• The objective of the scheme is to award scholarships to meritorious students of economically weaker sections to arrest their drop-out at class VIII and encourage them to continue their education at secondary stage.
• One lakh fresh scholarships of Rs.12,000/- per annum (Rs.1000/- per month) per student are awarded to selected students of class IX every year and their continuation/renewal in classes X to XII for study in State Government, Government-aided and Local body schools under the scheme. Students are selected for award of scholarships through an examination conducted by the State/ UT Governments.
• The scheme is boarded on the National Scholarship Portal (NSP).
• Scholarships are disbursed directly into the bank accounts of students by electronic transfer through Public Financial Management System (PFMS) following DBT mode.
• 100% funds under the scheme are provided by Central Government.
• This is a continuing scheme and since launch of the scheme in 2008-09, 22.06 lakh scholarships have been sanctioned till 2020-21 involving an expenditure of Rs. 1783.03 crore.

What's the NEWS

• India is fast evolving as a frontrunner in high power computing with the National Super Computing Mission (NSM) with Supercomputing infrastructure already installed in 10 premier institutions like IITs, IISc, IISER Pune, JNCASR Bengaluru, various C-DACs, NABI Mohali, and benefitting researchers from several other institutions too.

• As part of the National Supercomputing Mission (NSM), the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bengaluru has installed Param Pravega, one of the most powerful Indian supercomputers.
• Param Pravega having a supercomputing power of 3.3 petaflops, is the largest supercomputer that has been installed in an Indian academic institution.
• Going ahead, design and development of indigenous server nodes, interconnect switch, storage, and system software stack for next generation of High-Performance Computing (HPC) systems has been initiated with 85% indigenous manufacturing.
• This includes India's first indigenous server platform called ‘Rudra', which can meet the HPC requirements of all governments and PSUs as well as the strategic needs of the country.
• Besides, a next-generation indigenous HPC interconnect called "Trinetra" has been designed and developed in the country for efficient inter-node communication between compute nodes.
• PARAM Shivay, the first supercomputer assembled indigenously, was installed in IIT (BHU), followed by PARAM Shakti, PARAM Brahma, PARAM Yukti, PARAM Sanganak at IIT-Kharagpur IISER, Pune, JNCASR, Bengaluru and IIT Kanpur, IIT Hyderabad, NABI Mohali, CDAC Bengaluru respectively.

• The National Supercomputing Mission was launched to enhance the research capacities and capabilities in the country by connecting them to form a Supercomputing grid, with National Knowledge Network (NKN) as the backbone.
• The NSM is setting up a grid of supercomputing facilities in academic and research institutions across the country.
• Part of this is being imported from abroad, and part built indigenously, the latter being increased with time.
• The Mission is being jointly steered by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and implemented by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), Pune, and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru.
• India's march towards leadership position in supercomputing found a fresh dimension with the convergence of HPC and Artificial Intelligence (AI).
• A 200 AI PF Artificial Intelligence supercomputing system created and installed in C-DAC can handle incredibly large-scale AI workloads, increasing the speed of computing-related to AI several times.
• PARAM Siddhi - AI, the high-performance computing-artificial intelligence (HPC-AI) supercomputer, has achieved global ranking of 62 in the TOP 500 most powerful supercomputer systems in the world, released on 16^th November 2020.
• The mission has also created the next generation of supercomputer experts by training more than 11,000 HPC aware manpower and faculties.

• NITI Aayog and World Resources Institute (WRI), India, with the support of GIZ India, conducted a virtual consultation workshop on ‘Financing for Decarbonization of Transport' as part of the NDC-Transport Initiative for Asia (NDC-TIA) project.
• The Government of India is actively working towards the decarbonization of transport, with a major focus on the adoption of sustainable mobility.
• The aim of the workshop is to identify actionable strategies and bring together financing institutions and transport organizations to collectively work towards furthering innovative financing policies for the decarbonization of transport.
• The workshop was attended by dignitaries from various ministries, NDC-TIA project partners, representatives of Indian banks, international financial institutions and private sector companies, and stakeholders and experts from the transport and financing sectors.
• The NDC-TIA initiative brings together a wide spectrum of participants to facilitate peer-to-peer learning and information exchange on various themes, including "Financing the Decarbonization of Transport".'

• The NDC-TIA is a joint programme of seven organizations that engages India, China and Vietnam in promoting a comprehensive approach to decarbonizing transport in their respective countries.
• The project is part of the International Climate Initiative (IKI).
• The Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) supports the initiative on the basis of a decision adopted by the German Bundestag.
• NITI Aayog is the implementing partner for the India component of the project.

• The NDC Transport Initiative for Asia (NDC-TIA) aims to promote a coherent strategy of effective policies for decarbonising transport co-ordinated among various sector ministries, civil society, and the private sector.
• The project engages in China, India and Vietnam over the period 2020-24.
• The goal is to enable the countries' transport sectors to contribute to achieving their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and increase ambition in transport sections of long-term strategies and 2025 NDCs.
• As a regional initiative, the project will disseminate knowledge in Asia and at the global level.
• It will disseminate and share experiences at international dialogue platforms such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) process.
• The NDC-TIA is a joint project of seven organisations, co-ordinated by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH and funded by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) under the International Climate Initiative (IKI).
• The implementing partner in India for the project is NITI Aayog.
• Project partners also include the World Resources Institute (WRI), Agora Verkehrswende (AGORA), the Partnership on Sustainable, Low Carbon Transport (SLoCaT), the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) and the Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century (REN21).
• NDC-TIA is a part of ITF's work on Decarbonising Transport in India, which includes Decarbonising Transport in Emerging Economies - India component.

• The Ministry of Women and Child Development, Government of India has extended the PM Cares for Children Scheme till 28th February, 2022. Earlier the scheme was valid till 31st December, 2021.

• All eligible children can now be enrolled till 28th February, 2022 to avail benefits of PM CARES for Children Scheme.
• The scheme covers all children who have lost: i) Both parents or ii) Surviving parent or iii) legal guardian/adoptive parents/single adoptive parent due to COVID 19 pandemic, starting from 11.03.2020 the date on which WHO has declared and characterized COVID-19 as pandemic till 28.02.2022.
• To be entitled to benefits under this scheme Child should not have completed 18 years of age on the date of death of parents.
• Prime Minister, on 29th May, 2021, had announced comprehensive support for children who have lost both their parents due to COVID 19 pandemic.
• The objective of the scheme is to ensure comprehensive care and protection of children who have lost their parent(s) to COVID pandemic, in a sustained manner, enable their wellbeing through health insurance, empower them through education and equip them for self-sufficient existence with financial support on reaching 23 years of age.
• The PM CARES for children scheme inter-alia provides support to these children through convergent approach, gap funding for ensuring education, health, monthly stipend from the age of 18 years, and lump sum amount of Rs. 10 lakhs on attaining 23 years of age.

• The Ramanujan Prize for Young Mathematicians was awarded to Professor Neena Gupta, a mathematician of the Indian Statistical Institute in Kolkata
• She received the award for the year 2021 for her outstanding work in affine algebraic geometry and commutative algebra.

• The prize is awarded annually to a researcher from a developing country funded by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) of the Government of India in association with ICTP (International Centre for Theoretical Physics) and the International Mathematical Union (IMU).
• It is given to young mathematicians less than 45 years of age who have conducted outstanding research in a developing country.
• It is supported by DST in the memory of Srinivasa Ramanujan, a genius in pure mathematics who was essentially self-taught and made spectacular contributions to elliptic functions, continued fractions, infinite series, and analytical theory of numbers.

• Professor Gupta's solution for solving the Zariski cancellation problem, a fundamental problem in Algebraic Geometry, earned her the 2014 Young Scientists Award of the Indian National Science Academy (NSA).
• The NSA described her solution as ‘one of the best works in algebraic geometry in recent years done anywhere'.
• The problem was posed by one of the most eminent founders of modern Algebraic Geometry, Oscar Zariski, in 1949.

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