Uija Mitra Helpline’ Launched
• The Department of Telecom (DoT) has created the helpline to facilitate power distribution companies to provide information about outages to customers on September % 2016.
• The government is aiming to leverage information technology driven power distribution in the next three years that will allow users to get a supply status in urban towns on a real-time basis.
• The helpline is for pan-India usage to send information through voice calls and SMSes to apprise customers about power situation in their area, so that they can plan accordingly. It is a mandatory service, I which will be provided by all the telecom operators.
Union Government Launched ‘Gas 4 India’ Campaign
• The Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan launched ‘Gas 4 India’ campaign, aimed at promoting the use of gas in the country on September 6, 2016.
• Gas 4 India is a unified cross-country, multimedia, multi-event campaign to communicate the national, social, economic and ecological benefits of using natural gas as the fuel of choice to every citizen who uses, or will use in the near future, gas in any way—cook, travel, light their homes, and power their business.
• The campaign includes social engagement via Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Linkedln, and its official blogsite, as well as hyper local, offline events to directly connect with consumers through discussions, workshops and cultural events.
Union Government Launched Campaign to Eradicate Leprosy
• The Health Ministry launched a two-week-long massive campaign to eradicate leprosy across the country on September 4, 2016.
• The Leprosy Case1 Detection Campaign (LCDC) aims to cover more than 1600 blocks in the 149 districts across 20 States where nearly 3 lakh health teams.
• The campaign comes after Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for eradicating leprosy from the country by 2019, which is the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.
‘All India Trinamool Congress’ Declared as ‘National Party’
• After winning two consecutive assembly polls in West Bengal, Mamata Baneijee’s Trinamool Congress got the ‘National Party1 status by the Election Commission on September 4, 2016.
• It is a recognised State party in West Bengal, Manipur, Tripura and Arunachal Pradesh. Now, India has seven recognised national parties — Congress, BJP, BSP, CPI, CPM, NCP and All India Trinamool Congress.
• A political party becomes eligible to be recognised as a national party if it has won 2% of seats’ in Lok Sabha from at least three different States in the latest general election; or in a Lok Sabha or assembly election it has polled 6% of the total valid votes in at least four States, in addition to winning four Lok Sabha seats; or it has been recognised as a State party in at least four States.
