NITI Aayog Launched Urban Management Programme
- NITI Aayog.Singapore Cooperation Enterprise (SCE) and Temasek Foundation jointly launched Urban Management | Programme for capacity building of officials of State 1 governments and ULBs in implementing the Urban Rejuvenation Mission.
- It includes 7 States namely Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh & Assam. It was launched on April 29, 2016.
- It would cover areas of Urban Planning and Governance, , Water, Waste Water & Solid Waste Management and Public Financing (PPP) of Urban Infrastructure.
Election Commission Launched e-Voter Mobile App
- The Election Commission launched a mobile application titled e-voter with comprehensive details about the forthcoming Assembly polls in Kerala on April 28, 2016. The e-voter app was developed by the State IT Mission.
- It will facilitate for search in electoral roll, location of polling station, information regarding candidates, affidavit filed by them, filing of complaint and so on.
- The ‘know your candidate’ option in the app would provide constituency wise details of candidates, while ‘constituency list’ option would give segment wise details of voters (number of male voters, female voters and total number of voters) and total polling stations.
Three N-E States Implemented National Food Security Act
- North-Eastern States Manipur, Nagaland and Arunachal | Pradesh implemented the National Food Security Act in April, 2016. This scheme empower 87% of the priority households in the State population.
- Among other North-Eastern States, Tripura, Meghalaya, Assam had implemented the Food Security Act in 2015 and Mizoram in 2016. Under this scheme areas which served by the banking channels, options were kept for Direct Cash Transfer model. National Food Security Act has been passed in Parliament in 2013.
Shyam Benegal-headed Committee Submitted Report
- A government-appointed committee headed by filmmaker Shyam Benegal that was established to revamp the Central Board of Film Certification submitted its report to Information and Broadcasting Ministry on April 26, 2016.
- The panel includes filmmaker Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, actor Kamal Haasan, ad guru Piyush Pandey and film journalist Bhawana Somaaya. The announcement of setting-up of the panel and the work it was tasked with came in the backdrop of controversial decisions of the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), headed by Pahlaj Nihalani, particularly his role in censoring films.
