Supreme Court Allowed Photos of Chief Ministers, Governors, Ministers in Government Advertisements
- The pictures of Union Ministers, Chief Ministers, Governors and State Ministers can now appear in government advertisements with the Supreme Court modifying its earlier order and’ allowing their publication on March 18, 2016.
- The verdict came on pleas by Centre and States including poll-bound Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu which had sought a review of the Supreme Court judgment barring publication of leader’s photo in advertisements except those of the President, Prime Minister and the Chief Justice of India.
- A bench comprising Justices Ranjan Gogoi and PC Ghose gave this verdict and said that rest of the conditions and exceptions will remain as it is. Besides Centre, States of Karnataka, West Bengal, Assam, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha and Chattisgarh had also sought review of the May 13, 2015-verdict of the Apex Court.
Online FCI Depot System Launched
- Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Ram Vilas Paswan, launched Online System in New Delhi on March 17, 2016 to automate all the operations of FCI depots. It would help in better monitoring and supervision to reduce leakages and losses.
- The Operations of all the FCI, depots will be online by July, 2016 and by March, 2017 remaining Depots which include CWC, SWC and hired one will also be online. Almost 100% cards have been digitised and about 80000 Fair Price Shop (FPS) have, been provided with biometric Point of Sale Device for distributing subsidised foodgrains.
- Such devices Will be installed at 3 lakh FPS by March, 2017 and by March, 2019 all the ration shops in the country will have these devices to make Public Distribution System totally leak proof. 45% ration cards have been seeded with Aadhar cards and in next 2 years remaining cards will also be seeded with the Aadhars wherever available.
- The Union Ministry try is also in touch with the State governments to bring operations of their procurement agencies and distribution network online so that from procurement to delivery of foodgrains to the fair price shop become online.
The Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order (Amendment) Bill, 2016 Passed by Lok Sabha
- The Lok Sabha passed the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order (Amendment) Bill, 2016 on March 15, 2016 to include certain communities in the list,of Scheduled Castes (.SC) in Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Kerala and West Bengal.
- The bill seeks to amend Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950. In accordance with the provisions of Article-341 of the Constitution of India, six Presidential Orders have been issued specifying SCs in respect of various States and union territories and these orders have been amended from time-to-time.
- State governments of Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Kerala, Odisha and West Bengal have proposed certain modifications in the list of Scheduled Castes, “by way of inclusion of certain communities modification and removal of area restriction in respect of certain communities and exclusion of certain communities in case of Odisha”.
National Led Bulbs Scheme Got a New Face in ‘UJALA’
- Piyush Goyal, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Power, Coal and New & Renewable Energy announced the name ‘UJALA’ on March 11, 2016 for the LED based Domestic Efficient Lighting programme (DELP), which is currently running successfully in over 120 cities across India.
- UJALA, an acronym for Unnat Jyoti by Affordable LEDs for All, is being implemented by Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL).
- UJALA is successfully running across 12 States in India namely Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, Andhra Pradesh, Puducherry, Jharkhand, Bihar and Uttarakhand.
- The National LED programme was launched by the Hon’ble Prime Minister on January, 2015 with a target of replacing 77 crore incandescent lamps with LED bulbs.
- EESL has already distributed over 7.47 crore LED bulbs across the country resulting in energy savings of more than 2.66 crore kWh every day and has helped avoid peak demand of over 1944 MW.
