RAJASTHAN

Rajasthan ranks lowly 13th in Niti Aayog innovation index

Rajasthan has fared poorly in the Niti Aayog’s Innovation Index -2019 released on Thursday. The desert state has been placed at 13 position, among the bottom five, in the major states category. The state’s below par performance on seven pillars, which include five enablers and two performance indicators, underpins the importance for improving the ecosystem for innovation and growth.

The index takes up five innovation inputs or enablers like human capital, investment, knowledge workers, business environment and safety and environment and measures them with outputs or performance pillars such as knowledge output and diffusion.

INTERNATIONAL

India wins four UNESCO heritage awards

Four Indian sites have been chosen from India for the UNESCO Asia-Pacific Awards for Cultural Heritage Conservation.

The UNESCO Asia-Pacific Awards for Cultural Heritage Conservation awards were announced at a ceremony held in Penang, Malaysia, marking 20 years since its institution.

The four winners from India, include one from Ahmedabad – Award of Distinction for Vikram Sarabhai Library, Indian Institute of Management (IIM); and three from Mumbai – Award of Merit for Keneseth Eliyahoo Synagogue and Our Lady of Glory Church; while Honourable Mention for Flora Fountain.

China signs deal to lease ‘Tulagi’ island

A Chinese company signed an agreement to lease an entire island in the Solomon Islands.

Tulagi, an island about two square kilometres (0.8 square miles) with a population of 1,200.

It is the site of a former Japanese naval base and was the scene of fierce fighting in World War II.

India, Oman begin joint training exercise ‘EX EASTERN BRIDGE-V’

Indian Air Force (IAF) kick started its bilateral joint exercise with Royal Air Force Oman (RAFO), named ‘EX EASTERN BRIDGE-V’ at Air Force Base Masirah.

For the first time, MiG-29 fighter aircraft will be participating in an international exercise outside India.

Last time, the bilateral exercise was held in 2017 at Jamnagar.

NATIONAL

· India Post launched a mobile app to ease transactions

The Department of Post has launched mobile banking for its savings account customers. The app will make the post office savings account easier. The facility will be available for all the post office savings account holders of the Core Banking Solutions (CBS) post offices.
In 2018, the Department of Post launched an Internet banking facility for its savings account holders.

National Institute of Nutrition centenary stamp released

A special commemorative postal stamp of the National Institute of Nutrition (NIN), Hyderabad was released by Union Minister for Health & Family Welfare, Harsh Vardhan.

The stamp has been brought out under the “Corporate My stamp” scheme of India Posts.

The National Institute of Nutrition (NIN) is Indian Public health, Nutrition and Translational research centre located in Hyderabad.

· Centre to set up the biggest facial recognition system

India is planning to set up the biggest facial recognition system in the world. Under this plan, it is planning to build a centralized database that can be accessed by police officials from all the states across the country.

The system will be capable of matching images from the CCTV camera network spread in the country. It will also match images from passports, agencies like the Ministry of Women and Child Development, and also from sketches of suspected criminals. It will gather all the images from all the sources to identify the criminals in all possible manner.

Anup Kumar Singh appointed as Director-General of NSG

Ahmedabad city Police Commissioner Anup Kumar Singhwas appointed as the Director-General of the National Security Guard (NSG)by the Ministry of Home Affairs.
NSG is the Union Government’s Counter-Terrorism Unit.

Huge gap in private, government hospital Ayushman charges: Study

Huge disparities — sometimes more than 200% — in the cost of treatment have been noticed between public and private hospitals even as the government has fixed prices of packages under the Ayushman Bharat health insurance scheme, triggering further investigations by the National Health Authority (NHA) to validate reasons and formulate guidelines for private hospitals to prevent abuse.

The cost of treatment is directly related to the package being blocked. In most states under consideration, public facilities mostly block the basic package priced at Rs 500 per day, while private hospitals are providing more care under special, intensive, advanced and critical neonatal packages priced at Rs 3,000 to Rs 7,000.

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