Minority status

Context: The Government of Gujarat finally granted minority status to followers of Judaism in the state. The notification was issued by the state’s Department of Social Justice and Empowerment.

• Gujarat is now the third state in India to have granted minority status for Jews, following Maharashtra and West Bengal.
• Judaism was one of the first foreign religions to arrive in India in recorded history. Indian Jews are a religious minority of India, but unlike many parts of the world, have historically lived in India without any instances of antisemitism from the local majority populace.

Institutions of Eminence

Context: The Government has shortlisted Six Institutions of Eminence (IoEs)  including 3 from Public Sector and 3 from Private Sector. An Empowered Expert Committee (EEC) in its report recommended selection of 6 institutions (3 from public sector and 3 from private sector) as Institutions of Eminence.

The details of these Institutions are as under:

Public Sector:

• Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, Karnataka;
• Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, Maharashtra;
• Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.

Private Sector:

• Jio Institute (Reliance Foundation), Pune under Green Field Category;
• Birla Institute of Technology & Sciences, Pilani, Rajasthan;
• Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal, Karnataka.

Benefits

• It will ensure complete autonomy to the selected institutions and facilitate them to grow more rapidly. At the same time, they will get more opportunity to scale up their operations with more skills and quality improvement so that they become World Class Institutions in the field of education
• It is expected that the above selected Institutions will come up in top 500 of the world ranking in 10 years and in top 100 of the world ranking eventually overtime.
• To achieve the top world ranking, these Institutions shall be provided with greater autonomy to admit foreign students up to 30% of admitted students.
• to recruit foreign faculty upto 25% of faculty strength; to offer online courses upto 20% of its programmes.
• to enter into academic collaboration with top 500 in the world ranking Institutions without permission of UGC.
• free to fix and charge fees from foreign students without restriction.
• flexibility of course structure in terms of number of credit hours and years to take a degree; complete flexibility in fixing of curriculum and syllabus, among others.
• Each public Institution selected as ‘Institution of Eminence’ will get financial assistance up to Rs. 1000 Crore over the period of five years under this scheme.

Global Housing Construction Technology Challenge

Context: The ministry is set to launch the Global Housing Construction Technology Challenge as part of the technology sub-mission of PMAY-U.

• In a bid to accelerate PMAY-U’s target of providing ‘housing for all’, the ministry will invite ideas for innovative technologies for mass housing projects that can help build houses faster, cheaper, and of better quality, with sustainable green materials.
• The challenge will invite ideas from across the globe for alternative technologies that go beyond the brick-and-mortar building model used widely in Indian construction.
• The winning technologies would be used to build mass houses, in a tie-up with the states, for the economically weaker sections and low-income groups under the affordable housing project vertical of PMAY-U.

Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY)

• Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) is an initiative by Government of India in which affordable housing will be provided to the urban poor with a target of building 20 million affordable houses by 31 March 2022.
• It has two components: Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban) (PMAY-U) for the urban poor and Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana (Gramin) (PMAY-G and also PMAY-R) for the rural poor.

Asian Development Bank (ADB)

Context: Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Government of India Sign $ 84 Million Loan for Improvement and Expansion of Water Supply in the State of Bihar.

Benefits

• The Project 2 will improve access to better quality and sustainable water supply, for the people of Bhagalpur and Gaya towns.
• It will also promote better water management practices that will result in a citywide coverage with 24-hour uninterrupted supply of treated water of 135 litres per capita per day in both cities.
• The two towns under the project would achieve the national urban service goals or match many of the national averages for urban service delivery performance in India.
• The investment program will assist ULBs in designing affordable tariffs for O&M cost recovery.

Asian Development Bank

• The Asian Development Bank was conceived in the early 1960s as a financial institution that would be Asian in character and foster economic growth and cooperation in one of the poorest regions in the world
• ADB assists its members, and partners, by providing loans, technical assistance, grants, and equity investments to promote social and economic development
• ADB is composed of 67 members, 48 of which are from the Asia and Pacific region.

PRSS-1 and PakTES-1A

Context: China successfully launched two remote sensing satellites for its “all-weather” ally Pakistan, which will also help the two countries monitor progress as they build the strategic USD 50 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.

• The launch of the two satellites marks yet another space cooperation between China and Pakistan since the launch of PAKSAT-1R, a communication satellite, in August 2011.
• The satellites — PRSS-1 and PakTES-1A — were launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in northwest China using a Long March-2C rocket.

PRSS-1

• The PRSS-1 is China’s first optical remote sensing satellite sold to Pakistan. It is the 17th satellite developed by the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST) for an overseas buyer.
• The PRSS-1 will be used for land and resources surveying, monitoring of natural disasters, agriculture research, urban construction and providing remote sensing information for the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) of the Chinese government.

PakTES-1A

A scientific experiment satellite, PakTES-1A, developed by engineers of the Pakistan Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (Suparco), was sent into orbit using the same rocket.

Benefits

• The satellites will play a positive role in the development of Pakistan’s economy and improve the lives of people.
• Alongside, it will also provide space remote sensing information services for the CPEC, which is flagship project of the BRI.
• When the satellite flies over Pakistan, it can send back real-time images. This launch is the 279th mission of the Long March rocket series. Long March-2C rockets are mainly used to send satellites into low Earth or Sun-synchronous orbits.
• It is also the first international commercial launch for a Long March-2C rocket within nearly two decades after it carried Motorola’s Iridium satellites into orbit in 1999.

CPEC

The CPEC is a network of infrastructure projects that are currently under construction throughout Pakistan that will connect China’s Xinjiang province with the Gwadar port in Pakistan’s Balochistan province, giving China an opening to the Arabian Sea.