Current Affair 1:

Renaming of States in India

 

The Kerala Assembly passed a resolution unanimously asking the Union government to change the name of the state to 'Keralam.' The name of the state is 'Keralam' in Malayalam, the official language of the state. The state of Kerala came into existence on November 1, 1956, after the formation of linguistic states, and the resolution urged the Union government to amend Article 3 of the Constitution.

The resolution will be handed over to the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, which will seek opinions from departments including railways, intelligence bureau, posts, and surveys. The Bill would be introduced in Parliament after obtaining ‘No Objection’ from these departments.

What is the procedure?

The renaming of states is governed by Article 3 of the Constitution of India. The Article empowers the Parliament to alter the name of any State by law. The procedure for the same is as follows:

Step 1: The Parliament recommends a Bill for renaming the state

Step 2: The Bill has been referred by the President to the Legislature of that State for expressing their views.

Step 3: The Bill is passed in each House (Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha) by a passed by a simple majority.

Step 4: President gives his assent to the Bill

Step 5: The change in name of the state is recorded in First and Fourth Schedule of the Constitution (Schedule containing the names of states)

This is part of a trend that gained momentum after the renaming of Bombay, Madras and Calcutta.  Bombay was renamed Mumbai - derived from name of Goddess Mumbadevi - in1995.  In the following year Madras was renamed to Chennai and in 2001 Calcutta was renamed Kolkata. The renaming of a state requires Parliamentary approval under Article 3 and 4 of the Constitution, and the President has to refer the same to the relevant state legislature for its views.

Current Affair 2:

SATAT Initiative

 

SATAT’ (Sustainable Alternative Towards Affordable Transportation) scheme

Sustainable Alternative Towards Affordable Transportation (SATAT) initiative launched in October, 2018 envisages setting up of 5000 Compressed Biogas (CBG) plants for production of 15 million Metric Ton (MMT) per annum of CBG by 2023-24.

The scheme envisages to target production of 15 MMT (million tons) of CBG by 2023, from 5000 Plants.

The CBG Plants shall be set up by independent entrepreneurs. The CBG Plant Owner shall be responsible for planning, preparation, engineering and execution of the project, including storage of raw material, operation and maintenance of the plant, maintaining final product output quantity and quality and managing the by-products & wastes from the plant as per existing central / state norms.

Benefits:

1. It will boost availability of more affordable transport fuels and enable better use of agricultural residue, cattle dung and municipal solid waste. It will pave way for efficient municipal solid waste management and help in tackling problem of polluted urban air due to farm stubble-burning and carbon emissions.
2. It will boost entrepreneurship, rural economy and employment and provide additional source of revenue to farmers.
3. It will also help to integrate with existing networks such as city gas distribution (CGD) networks to boost supplies to domestic and retail users in existing and upcoming markets. Besides retailing from OMC fuel stations, CBS can at later date be injected into CGD pipelines too for efficient distribution and optimized access of cleaner and more affordable fuel.

 

Background:

Bio-gas is produced naturally through a process of anaerobic decomposition from waste / bio-mass sources like agriculture residue, cattle dung, sugarcane press mud, municipal solid waste, sewage treatment plant waste, etc.

After purification, it is compressed and called CBG, which has pure methane content of over 95%. Compressed Bio-Gas is exactly similar to the commercially available natural gas in its composition and energy potential.

With calorific value (~52,000 KJ/kg) and other properties similar to CNG, Compressed Bio-Gas can be used as an alternative, renewable automotive fuel. Given the abundance of biomass in the country, Compressed Bio-Gas has the potential to replace CNG in automotive, industrial and commercial uses in the coming years.

There are multiple benefits from converting agricultural residue, cattle dung and municipal solid waste into CBG on a commercial scale:

1. Responsible waste management, reduction in carbon emissions and pollution
2. Additional revenue source for farmers
3. Boost to entrepreneurship, rural economy and employment
4. Support to national commitments in achieving climate change goals
5. Reduction in import of natural gas and crude oil
6. Buffer against crude oil/gas price fluctuations

Current Affair 3:

National Digital Education Architecture (NDEAR)

 

Read:

An initial set of 36 building blocks across 12 categories have been identified to kickstart the digital infrastructure for education under NDEAR.

Current Affair 4:

RBI keeps keep the policy repo rate unchanged at 6.5%

 

News:

For FY 2023-24:

RBI kept the repo rate unchanged at 6.5% as inflation has again started inching up due to vegetable and food prices.

Going forward RBI will be focussing on 'withdrawal of accommodation' i.e., the easy money policy which RBI had followed post Covid, RBI will keep on withdrawing that policy which means RBI will reduce money supply to bring the inflation under target (4%) but it will keep 'economic growth in mind'.

Because of the deposition of Rs. 2000 currency note in banks... liquidity in banks have increased, so RBI has asked banks to maintain an 'Incremental CRR' of 10%. So, whatever money banks have received from public deposit (called Net Demand and Time Liabilities) between May 19 to July 28, on that deposit 10% CRR needs to be maintained, otherwise it is 4.5%.

Additional measures announced by RBI

Conversational Payments and Off-line Capability on UPI; Enhancement in Transaction Limit of Small Value Off-line Digital Payments

With the objective of harnessing new technologies for enhancing the digital payments experience for users, it is proposed to (i) enable “Conversational Payments” on UPI, which will enable users to engage in conversation with AI-powered systems to make payments; (ii) introduce offline payments on UPI using Near Field Communication (NFC) technology through ‘UPI-Lite’ on-device wallet; and (iii) enhance the transaction limit for small value digital payments in off-line mode from ₹200 to ₹500 within the overall limit of ₹2000 per payment instrument. These initiatives will further deepen the reach and use of digital payments in the country.

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