29.11.22 Daily [Andhra Pradesh] APPSC Current Affairs

The Centre has in principle agreed to grant the advance fund to put thePolavaram project workon fast track. The state government has been lobbying for the release of advance grant of 10,000 crore for the past several months in order to complete the project as per the deadline in 2023.

The state government already submitted a detailed report on the issue to the Centre. Jal Shakti ministry secretary Pankaj Kumar, reviewed the project progress with the senior officials of CWC and PPA in New Delhi.

Although the Centre repeatedly promised to fund the project cost, it had kept the granting the approval for RCE based on 2017-18 price level.
The state government contented that it was not possible to complete the project with 2013-14 price level as it was projected at just around Rs 29,027 crore.

However, CWC estimated the cost at Rs.55,656 crore at 2017-18 price level. Subsequently, finance ministry and Jal Shakti ministry appointed a Revised Cost Committee to study the proposals of Technical Adivsory Committee (TAC) of CWC keeping in view of the escalation of the cost by over 50%.

The Singapore Airlines (SIA) will get 25.1 per cent stake in the merged entity at an investment of Rs 2,058.5 crore (250 million USD). The rest of the stake will be held by Tata.

These stakes will be in an enlarged Air India Group, which will have Air India, Vistara, AirAsia India and Air India Express. The merger of all these airlines are expected to be completed by March 2024 after receiving regulatory approvals.

The Air India Group is already in the process of merging Air India Express and AirAsia India into a single entity that will provide low-cost flight services.

Nai Chetana is a gender campaign launched in all Indian states under the National Rural Livelihoods Mission.

Over the next five years, this campaign seeks to build a common understanding and recognition of disadvantages and discrimination faced by women across all levels among community institutions, rural communities and government departments.

The theme for this years campaign is Gender Based Violence. It will be organized from November 25 to December 23 this year.

This nationwide campaign aims to sensitise women, especially those in rural regions, about gender-based violence and make them aware about various institutional mechanisms that are available to help them address such violence.

Nearly three years after being suggested byLok SabhaMPs to have such an alert mechanism, the environment ministry has set up a national helpline forforest firecases in the country. The move will help forest officials to reach the spot faster and prevent the fires from spreading.

As far as forest fire is concerned, nearly 36% (2,53,151 sq. km) of the forest cover in India is considered prone to forest fires. There are 26 most forest fire affected districts, spread over 11 states, in India. The forest fire season in the country is normally from November to June with the majority of it being caused due to man-made factors.

North-eastern states show the highest tendency of forest fire with Mizoram, Tripura, Meghalaya and Manipur reporting highest forest fire probability in terms of its frequency.

According to theForest Survey of India(FSI) that has been assisting state forest departments and other agencies to deal with the problem since 2004, parts of western Maharashtra, southern part of Chhattisgarh, central part of Odisha and few parts ofAndhra Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka are showing patches of extremely and very highly fire prone zones.

The United Nations General Assembly has unanimously adopted a resolution to develop an international tax cooperation framework or instrument based on a UN intergovernmental process. Nigeria submitted this resolution on behalf of a consortium of 54 African countries.

The proposed UN framework on global tax cooperation will put an end to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation & Developments 60-year role as the regulator of taxations across the world. Similar framework has been proposed by the OECD. It has been under development in the OECD for nearly a decade but its final draft is yet to be given. The proposed UN framework will likely put an end to the power struggle between the UN and the OECD on international tax regulations.

The proposed framework is expected to benefit developing countries in Africa and Asia since they are provided with a larger say on the formulation of global tax regulations.