Tribal Museum

• The Chhattisgarh government will set up a tribal museum in the state’s upcoming new capital Raipur with a view to exhibit culture and tradition of scheduled tribes.
• The tribal museum will be built at the cost of Rs 27 crore in an area of around 22 acres in Naya Raipur and will be named after Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh, a freedom fighter from the state who had made a tremendous contribution in the freedom struggle of 1857.

Conference of States Power Ministers

Context: A conference of Ministers for Power, New & Renewable Energy of States & Union Territories held on 3rd July at Shimla, Himachal Pradesh.

Objective:  One-day conference is to review the implementation of various ongoing Schemes/ Programmes & deliberate on a host of issues pertaining to Power and Renewable Energy sectors.

• Further, the delegates discussed the proposed draft amendments in the provision of Captive Generating Plant in Electricity Rules, 2005 and flexibility in utilization of Coal.
• Discussion will also be held on promoting environment friendly measures such as- setting up of Charging Infrastructure for E-vehicle, review of progress on adoption of Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC) by the States and the UTs and establishment of standalone SDA for effective implementation of Energy Conservation and Energy Efficiency Programmes.
• In the area of Renewable Energy, the Conference discussed several important issues such as – compliance of RPO targets, preparation of month wise plans for bidding solar & wind capacity by State/UT, review of Solar Parks and Solar Rooftop Program.
• Apart from above aspects, automatic exemption from land ceiling act for RE power projects, free intra-state transmission for solar/wind power and fast provision of Right of Way (RoW) for evacuation facility being set up by CTUs also discussed.
• In addition to it, deliberations will be held on issues relating to Small Hydro Power and Biomass Power.

Gross domestic product (GDP)

Context: The government has set up a 13-member committee to upgrade the norms for computation of economic data at states and districts level in the backdrop of plans to revise the base year for National Accounts or GDP (Gross Domestic Product) calculation.

• This Committee will be headed by Ravindra H Dholakia, a retired professor of IIM Ahmedabad.
• The panel will also review the concepts, definitions, classifications, data conventions, data sources and data requirements for preparation of State Domestic Product (SDP) and District Domestic Product (DDP).

Gross domestic product (GDP)

Gross domestic product (GDP) is the monetary value of all the finished goods and services produced within a country’s borders in a specific time period. Though GDP is usually calculated on an annual basis, it can be calculated on a quarterly basis as well

Determining gross domestic product

• GDP can be determined in three ways, all of which should, in principle, give the same result. They are the production (or output or value added) approach, the income approach, or the speculated expenditure approach.

Production Approach

• Estimate the gross value of domestic output out of the many various economic activities;
• Determine the [intermediate consumption], i.e., the cost of material, supplies and services used to produce final goods or services.
• Deduct intermediate consumption from gross value to obtain the gross value added

Income Approach

The second way of estimating GDP is to use “the sum of primary incomes distributed by resident producer units

Expenditure Approach

The third way to estimate GDP is to calculate the sum of the final uses of goods and services (all uses except intermediate consumption) measured in purchasers prices.

Hambantota Port

Context: Sri Lanka is shifting a naval base currently situated in the tourist district of Galle to the Hambantota port which is built and controlled by China

• Sri Lanka is shifting a naval base to a port built and controlled by China, it said on Monday, a move that will strengthen security at a harbour that foreign powers fear China could use for military purposes.
• The $1.5 billion deepwater port is likely to play a major role in China’s “Belt and Road” initiative and is under a 99-year lease to China Merchants Port Holdings at a cost of $1.12 billion.

cVigil App

Context: The Election Commission launched an Android-based mobile application named “cVigil” for citizens to share proof of malpractices by political parties, their candidates and activists when the Model Code of Conduct is in force.

• The mobile application also facilitates sharing of geo-tagged photographic and video evidence without disclosing the identity of the sender.
• The uploaded information will be transmitted to the control room, and from there the field units or flying squads, mapped on a Geographic Information System, will be immediately alerted for further action.
• In case the complainant does not opt for anonymity, the person will also receive an action-taken report within about 100 minutes.
• The mobile application, for which EC officials will be trained for effective back-end operations and action against the malpractices reported ahead of the elections, was launched against the backdrop of the inauguration of a two-day national consultation programme on “Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities (PwDs) in the Electoral Process.”

Election Commission

• The Election Commission of India is an autonomous constitutional authority responsible for administering election processes in India. The body administers elections to the Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha, state Legislative Assemblies in India, and the offices of the President and Vice President in the country
• The Commission has the powers under the Constitution, to act in an appropriate manner when the enacted laws make insufficient provisions to deal with a given situation in the conduct of an election.
• The Chief Election Commissioner of India can be removed from his office similar to the removal of a judge of the Supreme Court of India which requires a resolution passed by the Parliament with a two-thirds majority in both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha on the grounds of proved misbehavior or incapacity.
• Other Election Commissioners can be removed by the President of India on the recommendation of the Chief Election Commissioner.