Andhra Pradesh
- Social forestry planters on the warpath in Ongole
- Farmers who switched to social forestry plantations such as eucalyptus and subabul from traditional commercial crops such as tobacco and cotton in the 1990s now rue their fate with the prices hitting a new low this month.
- The latest trigger for the price fall is the GST on paper-based stationery products. While the price of subabul has come down to about ₹2,600 per tonne, eucalyptus fetched a price between ₹1,800 to 2,200 per tonne.
INTERNATIONAL
- Spanish scientists develop ‘anti-Zika drug’
- Researchers from a southeastern Spanish university announced the discovery of a molecule that could be used as a potential drug to fight the effects of a Zika virus infection.
- Scientists belonging to its Bioinformatics and High-Performance Computing research group had found that a compound previously used as an antibiotic countered the symptoms of the mosquito-borne disease.
- The molecular structure of the proteins involved in the Zika virus’ replication process was first described only a year ago.
NATIONAL
- Govt eyes USD 10bn investment in food processing sector
- The government is eyeing an investment worth USD 10 billion in next five years in the food processing sector, Union Minister for Food Processing Industries Harsimrat Kaur Badal said.
- It has been seen 40 per cent growth in FDI in multi-branded food retail after we announced 100 per cent FDI in the sector last year.
- The government has set a target of USD 10 billion investment in the food processing sector in next 5 years.
- Further, the minister said exports have also increased and stood at USD 1 billion from April-July period.
- For this purpose, the government has launched Rs 6,000 crore ‘Kisan SAMPADA Yojana’ scheme for food processing, which will integrate current and new schemes.
- The scheme will benefit 20 lakh farmers and generate 5,30,500 direct and indirect employment in the country by the year 2019-20.
- The minister said the government has sanctioned 42 food parks and 100 cold chains, of which 10 mega food parks and 30 cold chains are operational.
- “We are expecting all 42 food parks and 100 cold chains to be operational in two years,” she added.
- The government is organising ‘World Food India 2017’ from November 3-5 in New Delhi to give a platform to stake holders to showcase the growing food processing sector, policies and connect global and domestic industry.
- NALSA has launched Web Application for Legal Services to Prisoners
- NALSA has launched a web application for free Legal Services to Prisoners at the conference held at Indian Law Institute, New Delhi. The Conference saw the participation of Member Secretaries and administrative officers of 18 State Legal Services Authorities. The Legal Services Management System has been developed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC).
- The State Legal Services Authorities and District Legal Services Authorities will feed into the web application the data for each individual prison inmate in the jails within their jurisdiction. The feeds will have details regarding the representation of prisoners through a counsel in the court.
- She-box launched for govt staff to report harassment at workplace.
- The Union women and child development (WCD) ministry on Monday launched “She-box” — an online complaint window to be made available at the ministry’s website (www.wcd.nic.in), where any woman employee who faces sexual harassment or abuse at work can report the incident.
- Officials said the ministry had been getting numerous complaints from women employees alleging delay in investigation of such cases, which necessitated the need to set up the She-box.
- Parliament having cleared the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act in February 2013, its implementation has so far remained patchy.
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