Relevance IN - Prelims (about NEST and its objective) + Mains (GS II bilateral relations + India's foreign policy)
What's the NEWS

• The Ministry of External Affairs is setting up a new division called New, Emerging and Strategic Technologies (NEST) division, Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar announced it recently
• This will act as the nodal division within MEA for collaboration with foreign partners in 5G and artificial intelligence.
• The division will work to increase investment coordination among the states of the country and also with the foreign countries.
• The top Emerging Technologies in India are Artificial Intelligence and Internet of things. The emerging 5G technology will improve the performance of IoT Platforms

• Evolving India's external technology policy in coordination with domestic stakeholders; this policy will also align with India's national security goal and developmental priorities.
• Recommending foreign policy choices by assessing foreign policy and international legal implications of new and emerging technologies
• Negotiating "technology governance rules, standards and architecture" in multilateral frameworks
• Creating HR capacity within MEA for technology diplomacy-Medianama

• The Department of Heavy Industries has sanctioned 2,636 charging stations under the FAME India (Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles in India) scheme phase II.
• These stations are spread over 62 cities across 24 States and Union Territories
• Of these 2,636 charging stations, 1,633 Charging Stations will be Fast Charging Stations and 1,003 will be slow charging stations.

• In all, 317 EV charging stations have been allotted in Maharashtra, 266 in Andhra Pradesh, 256 in Tamil Nadu, 228 in Gujarat, and 205 in Rajasthan.
• Another 207 have been sanctioned in Uttar Pradesh, 172 in Karnataka, 159 in Madhya Pradesh, and 141 in West Bengal.
• In future at least one charging station will be available in most of the selected cities in a grid of 4 km X 4 km.
• It will boost the confidence of users of Electric Vehicles and also encourage the OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) to launch the new electric vehicle models.

• It includes CHAdeMO, Indian Bharat Standard and Combined Charging System
• India will deploy both CHAdeMO and Combined Charging System (CCS) fast-charging technologies, besides the existing Bharat Standard, at its public electric vehicle charging stations.
• CHAdeMO is a quick charging method that delivers up to 62.5 KW by 500 volt and 125 ampere DC (Direct Current).
• The CCS involves both DC and AC charging
• Bharat Standard is a low voltage charging technology (72 volts - 200 volts)
• The CCS and CHAdeMO chargers are high voltage chargers (200 volt and above)

• FAME India is Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of (Hybrid) and Electric Vehicles.
• The objective of the scheme is to increase the use of electric and hybrid vehicles by offering incentives.
• The phase I of the scheme was launched on April 1, 2015 with an allocated budget of Rs 895 crores.
• The phase I of the scheme was launched on April 1, 2015 with an allocated budget of Rs 895 crores.
• The phase II was launched on April 1, 2019 with an allocated budget of Rs 10,000 crores.

• The Election Commission of India (ECI) launched the Political Parties Registration Tracking Management System (PPRTMS) to help the applicants keep a track of their applications for the party registration from this year onwards.

• The applicant, who is applying for party registration from January 1, 2020, will be able to track the progress of his or her application and will get the status update through SMS and e-mail
• The Commission has amended the guidelines regarding registration of political party
• The new guidelines are effective from January 1, 2020
• The registration of political parties is governed by the provisions of Section 29A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951.
• An association seeking registration under the said Section has to submit an application to the Commission within a period of 30 days following the date of its formation, as per the guidelines prescribed by the Commission in exercise of the powers conferred by Article 324 of the Constitution of India and Section 29A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951

Relevance IN - Prelims (about Greater Adjutant)
What's the NEWS

• The Assam State Zoo cum Botanical Garden and Aaranyak NGO has jointly attained a landmark achievement by successfully hatching a pair of Greater Adjutant chicks in an artificial platform within the zoo enclosure, in the first ever experiment of its kind.
• This is the first ever such experiment on breeding Greater Adjutant stork inside a Zoo and success of this project shows that captive breeding of this species is possible in the near future.

Know! about Endangered Greater Adjutant stork (Leptoptilosdubius)

• The Endangered Greater Adjutant stork (Leptoptilosdubius) is one of the rarest species of Storks out of twenty species of Storks in the world.
• In India, eight species of residential storks are found, out of which Greater Adjutant is one of them.
• Once abundantly distributed in Southeast Asia, this stork is now restricted to a few isolated pockets in Assam and Bihar in India and PrekToal in Cambodia.

Economic Development
Nirmala Sitharaman unveils Rs. 102 lakh crore national infrastructure plan
Relevance IN - Prelims ( facts about the national infrastructure pipeline ) + Mains ( GS III infrastructure development)
What's the NEWS

• Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman today unveiled a Rs. 102 lakh crore national infrastructure pipeline, in accordance with the government's vision to make India a $5 trillion economy by 2024-25.
• The finance ministry had set up a task force headed by Economic Affairs Secretary to prepare a road map for the "national infrastructure pipeline" from 2019-20 to 2024-25 under the Rs.100 lakh crore infra plan.
  
  

Know! the important highlights

• Power, railways, urban irrigation, mobility, education, health form bulk of infra project pipeline
• The private companies will account for 22%-25% of the investments and the balance will come from the Centre and the states in equal proportions.
• The projects have been classified under two broad categories namely economic infrastructure and social infrastructure for both ease of doing business and ease of living.
• Under the projects, energy sectors make up the lion's share of 24%, followed by roads(19%), urban development(16%) and the railways (13%).
• Rs. 24.54 lakh crore investment will flow in the energy sector, and of that Rs. 11.7 lakh crore would be in just the power sector.
• The shares of rural and social infrastructure projects which includes health, education and drinking water is 8% and 3% respectively.
• The central government and state governments would have an equal share of 39% each in the NIP.
• The private sector, on the other hand, would have 22% share which the government expects to increase to 30% by 2025.
  
  

National Infrastructure Pipeline

• The National Infrastructure Pipeline will enable a forward outlook on infrastructure projects, it will create jobs, improve ease of living, and provide equitable access to infrastructure for all, thereby making growth more inclusive:
• National Infrastructure Pipeline Coordination mechanism will be launched to monitor identified infra projects
• Out of the projects included in the national infrastructure pipeline, 43% are under implementation, 33% are at conceptual stage and 19% are under development.
  
  

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