Current Affairs - PIB News

• Two more Indian beaches - Kovalam in Tamil Nadu and Eden in Puducherry were accorded Blue Flag Certification.
• Now India has 10 ‘Blue Flag’ certified beaches – 8 such were certified last year.
• Foundation for Environment Education in Denmark (FEE) which accords the globally recognized eco-label - Blue Flag certification, has also given re-certification for 8 nominated beaches Shivrajpur-Gujarat, Ghoghla-Diu, Kasarkod and Padubidri-Karnataka, Kappad-Kerala, Rushikonda- Andhra Pradesh, Golden-Odisha and Radhanagar- Andaman and Nicobar, which were awarded the Blue Flag certificate last year.
• FEE Denmark conducts regular monitoring & audits for strict compliance of the 33 criteria at all times. A waving “Blue Flag” is an indication of 100% compliance to these 33 stringent criteria and sound health of the beach.

Initiatives of the MoEF&CC towards “Sustainable Development” of the Coastal Regions of India

• The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change in its pursuit of “Sustainable Development” of the coastal regions of Indiaembarked upon a highly acclaimed & flagship program Beach Environment & Aesthetics Management Services (BEAMS) which is one of the initiatives under Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) approachthat the MoEF&CC has undertaken for the sustainable development of coastalregions of India,with aprime objectiveto protect and conserve the pristine coastal and marine ecosystems throughholistic management of the resources.
• This was aimed for achieving the globally recognized and the coveted International eco-label "Blue Flag”, accorded by International Jury comprising of members from IUCN, UNWTO, UNEP, UNESCO, etc.
• The objective of BEAMS program is to abate pollution in coastal waters, promote sustainable development of beach facilities, protect & conserve coastal ecosystems & natural resources, and seriously challenge local authorities & stakeholders to strive and maintain high standards of cleanliness, hygiene & safety for beachgoers in accordance with coastal environment & regulations.

On 22 September 2021, the Ministry of Commerce & Industry launched National Single Window System.

• DPIIT (Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade) along with Invest India have developed the portal as a National Single Window System (NSWS) to provide a single platform to enable investors to identify and obtain approvals and clearances needed by investors, entrepreneurs, and businesses in India.
• The system is envisioned to address information asymmetry, duplication of information submitted across platforms and authorities and inefficient tracking of approvals and registration faced by investors.

Services (Online) provided by NSWS

• Know Your Approval (KYA) Service: An intelligent information wizard that generates a list of approvals required by any business to commence operations. It does so by asking the investor a series of dynamic questions about their planned business activities and identifies the applicable approvals basis the responses provided. The questionnaire, simple and user friendly on the surface, has a complex, automated logic built into it to sieve through hundreds of approvals, and shortlists only those relevant to the specific investor or entrepreneur. This service is only for guidance purposes and does not constitute any legal advice.
• Common Registration Form: To ensure a single point of submission of information and documents across Ministries and States, a unified information capturing system along with a common registration form has been introduced. Information is auto-populated on forms, eliminating the need to fill in the same information again.
• State Registration Form: Enables investor to have seamless single click access to respective State Single Window System.
• Applicant Dashboard: Provides a single online interface to apply, track and respond to the queries pertaining to approvals and registrations across ministries and States.
• Document Repository: It is an online centralized storage service for investors to enable one-time document submission and use the same across multiple approvals. This eliminates the need to submit documents at multiple portals.
• E-Communication Module: Enables online response to queries and clarification requests related to applications by Ministries and States.

On 20^th September 2021, the National Commission for Women (NCW) has launched a country-wide capacity building and personality development program for women Undergraduate and Post graduate students.

NCW launched its first program in collaboration with the Central University of Haryana.

Aim of this Programme

• This programme is aimed at making women independent and employment-ready.

About the Programme

The Programme’s course consists of three categories: Personal Capacity Building, Professional Career Skills and Digital Literacy and Effective Use of Social Media.

Personal Capacity Building: This session would help students enhance skills such as time management, stress management, and communication. The objective of the session is to make women learners engage in effective communication by respecting diversity and embracing good listening skills. It will help students in practicing interpersonal skills for better relations with peers and stakeholders and understand the importance of documentation of key critical ideas and action points to be implemented.

Professional Career Skills: This session will focus on identifying career opportunities, building resume and presentation skills and empower women students in exploring career opportunities for themselves considering their innate strengths and weaknesses. It will also help students in preparing an appropriate resume, addressing the necessary gaps for facing interviews and actively and effectively presenting their skill set thereof.

Digital Literacy and Effective Use of Social Media: This session aims to generate awareness among women on safe usage of internet and social media platforms. It will raise awareness about cybercrimes among women and advise them about the resources/recourse available to them for preventing and handling cybercrimes.

After completion of all the three sessions, students will take an online quiz organized through MyGov where they will be tested for their understanding of the subject. The test will be based on the booklet/ training sessions conducted under the program. All the participants will receive certificates upon completion of the quiz and the top 25 participants will be provided with ‘Certificate of Commendation’ signed by NCW, MyGov and the Head of the Institute.

On 30^th August the Department of Expenditure, Ministry of Finance has released an amount of Rs. 13,385.70 crore to 25 States for providing grants to the Rural Local Bodies. This Grant-in-aid is the 1st installment of Tied grants of the year 2021-22.

• The grants have been released as per the recommendations of the 15th Finance Commission.

Tied Grants

Tied grants are released to the Rural Local Bodies (RLBs) for improving two critical services namely

(i)Sanitation and maintenance of open-defecation free (ODF) status, and

(ii)Supply of drinking water, rain water harvesting and water recycling.

• Out of the total Grant-in-aid allocated for Panchayati Raj institutions, 60 percent is ‘Tied Grant’. It’s earmarked for national priorities like drinking water supply, rainwater harvesting and sanitation.
• Remaining 40 percent is ‘Untied Grant’ and is to be utilized at the discretion of the Panchayati Raj institutions for location specific felt needs, except for payment of salaries.
• Tied grants are meant to ensure availability of additional funds to the Rural Local Bodies over and above the funds allocated by the Centre and the State for sanitation and drinking water under the Centrally Sponsored Schemes.
• The States are required to transfer the grants to the Rural Local Bodies within 10 working days of their receipt from the Union Government. Any delay beyond 10 working days requires the State Governments to release the grants with interest.

On 16th September 2021, NITI Aayog launched a report titled ‘Reforms in Urban Planning Capacity in India’ on measures to ramp up urban planning capacity in India.

Reforms in Urban Planning Capacity: Summary

• India is home to 11% of the total global urban population. By 2027, India will surpass China as the most populous country in the world. Unplanned urbanization, however, exerts great strain on our cities. In fact, the Covid-19 pandemic has revealed the dire need for the planning and management of our cities.
• Urban planning is the foundation for an integrated development of cities, citizens, and the environment. Unfortunately, it has received due attention so far. The existing urban planning and governance framework is complex, which often leads to ambiguity and lack of accountability.

The report makes several recommendations that can unblock bottlenecks in the value chain of urban planning capacity in India. Some of them are:

• Programmatic Intervention for Planning of Healthy Cities: Every city must aspire to become a ‘Healthy City for All’ by 2030. The report recommends a Central Sector Scheme ‘500 Healthy Cities Programme’, for a period of 5 years, wherein priority cities and towns would be selected jointly by the states and local bodies.
• Programmatic Intervention for Optimum Utilization of Urban Land: All the cities and towns under the proposed ‘Healthy Cities Programme’ should strengthen development control regulations based on scientific evidence to maximize the efficiency of urban land (or planning area). The report recommends a sub-scheme ‘Preparation/Revision of Development Control Regulations’ for this purpose.
• Ramping Up of Human Resources: To combat the shortage of urban planners in the public sector, the report recommends that the states/UTs may need to a) expedite the filling up of vacant positions of town planners, and b) additionally sanction 8268 town planners’ posts as lateral entry positions for a minimum period of 3 years and a maximum of 5 years to meet the gaps.
• Ensuring Qualified Professionals for Undertaking Urban Planning: State town and country planning departments face an acute shortage of town planners. This is compounded by the fact that in several states, ironically, a qualification in town planning is not even an essential criterion for such jobs. States may need to undertake requisite amendments in their recruitment rules to ensure the entry of qualified candidates into town-planning positions.
• Re-engineering of Urban Governance: There is a need to bring in more institutional clarity and also multi-disciplinary expertise to solve urban challenges. The report recommends the constitution of a high-powered committee to re-engineer the present urban-planning governance structure. The key aspects that would need to be addressed in this effort are:
  1. clear division of the roles and responsibilities of various authorities, appropriate revision of rules and regulations, etc.,
  2. creation of a more dynamic organizational structure, standardisation of the job descriptions of town planners and other experts, and
  3. extensive adoption of technology for enabling public participation and inter-agency coordination.
• Revision of Town and Country Planning Acts: Most States have enacted the Town and Country Planning Acts, that enable them to prepare and notify master plans for implementation. However, many need to be reviewed and upgraded. Therefore, the formation of an apex committee at the state level is recommended to undertake a regular review of planning legislations (including town and country planning or urban and regional development acts or other relevant acts).
• Demystifying Planning and Involving Citizens: While it is important to maintain the master plans’ technical rigour, it is equally important to demystify them for enabling citizens’ participation at relevant stages. Therefore, the committee strongly recommends a ‘Citizen Outreach Campaign’ for demystifying urban planning.
• Steps for Enhancing the Role of Private Sector: The report recommends that concerted measures must be taken at multiple levels to strengthen the role of the private sector to improve the overall planning capacity in the country. These include the adoption of fair processes for procuring technical consultancy services, strengthening project structuring and management skills in the public sector, and empanelment of private sector consultancies.

Steps for Strengthening Urban Planning Education System

• The Central universities and technical institutions in all the other States/UTs are encouraged to offer postgraduate degree programmes (MTech Planning) to cater to the requirement of planners in the country in a phased manner.
• The committee also recommends that all such institutions may synergize with Ministry of Rural Development, Ministry of Panchayati Raj and respective state rural development departments/directorates and develop demand-driven short-term programmes on rural area planning.
• ‘Planning’ as an umbrella term, including all its specializations such as environment, housing, transportation, infrastructure, logistics, rural area, regional, etc., or any other nomenclature approved by AICTE, should be included as a discipline under the National Institute Ranking Framework (NIRF) of MoE to encourage a healthy competition among the institutions.
• The committee recommends that AICTE may retain the names of specializations based on industry requirements, while limiting them to an appropriate number, as 25 nomenclatures seem too high for market acknowledgement and absorption.
• Faculty shortage in educational institutions conducting degree and PhD programmes in planning need to be resolved in a time bound manner by 2022.

Measures for Strengthening Human Resource and Match Demand–Supply: The report recommends the constitution of a ‘National Council of Town and Country Planners’ as a statutory body of the Government of India. Also, a ‘National Digital Platform of Town and Country Planners’ is suggested to be created within the National Urban Innovation Stack of MoHUA. This portal will enable self-registration of all planners and evolve as a marketplace for potential employers and urban planners.

In a rare discovery, teeth of new species of hybodont shark of Jurassic age have been reported for the first time from Jaisalmer by a team of officers from the Geological Survey of India (GSI), Western Region, Jaipur.

• Hybodont sharks have been reported for the first time from the Jurassic rocks (approximately, between 160 and 168 million-years-old) of the Jaisalmer region of Rajasthan.
• Hybodonts, an extinct group of sharks, was a dominant group of fishes in both marine and fluvial environments during the Triassic and early Jurassic time. However, hybodont sharks started to decline in marine environments from the Middle Jurassic onwards until they formed a relatively minor component of open-marine shark assemblages. Hybodonts finally became extinct at the end of the Cretaceous time 65 million years ago.
• The newly discovered crushing teeth from Jaisalmer represent a new species named by the research team as Strophodus jaisalmerensis.
• The genus Strophodus has been identified for the first time from the Indian subcontinent and is only the third such record from Asia, the other two being from Japan and Thailand.

Recently India unveiled the Account Aggregator (AA) network, a financial data-sharing system that could revolutionize investing and credit, giving millions of consumers greater access and control over their financial records and expanding the potential pool of customers for lenders and fintech companies.

• Account Aggregator empowers the individual with control over their personal financial data, which otherwise remains in silos.
• This is first step towards bringing open banking in India and empowering millions of customers to digitally access and share their financial data across institutions in a secure and efficient manner.
• The Account Aggregator system in banking has been started off with eight of the India’s largest banks. The Account Aggregator system can make lending and wealth management a lot faster and cheaper.

What is an Account Aggregator?

• An Account Aggregator (AA) is a type of RBI regulated entity (with an NBFC-AA license) that helps an individual securely and digitally access and share information from one financial institution they have an account with to any other regulated financial institution in the AA network. Data cannot be shared without the consent of the individual.
• There will be many Account Aggregators an individual can choose between.
• Account Aggregator replaces the long terms and conditions form of ‘blank cheque’ acceptance with a granular, step by step permission and control for each use of your data.

How will the new Account Aggregator network improve an average person's financial life?

• India's financial system involves many hassles for consumers today -- sharing physical signed and scanned copies of bank statements, running around to notarise or stamp documents, or having to share your personal username and password to give your financial history to a third party. The Account Aggregator network would replace all these with a simple, mobile-based, simple, and safe digital data access & sharing process. This will create opportunities for new kinds of services -- eg new types of loans.
• The individual's bank just needs to join the Account Aggregator network. Eight banks already have -- four are already sharing data based on consent (Axis, ICICI, HDFC, and IndusInd Banks) and four are going to be able to shortly (State Bank of India, Kotak Mahindra Bank, IDFC First Bank, and Federal Bank).

How is Account Aggregator different to Aadhaar eKYC data sharing, credit bureau data sharing, and platforms like CKYC?

• Aadhaar eKYC and CKYC only allow sharing of four ‘identity’ data fields for KYC purposes (eg name, address, gender, etc). Similarly, credit bureau data only shows loan history and/or a credit score. The Account Aggregator network allows sharing of transaction data or bank statements from savings/deposit/current accounts.

What kind of data can be shared?

• Today, banking transaction data is available to be shared (for example, bank statements from a current or savings account) across the banks that have gone live on the network.
• Gradually the AA framework will make all financial data available for sharing, including tax data, pensions data, securities data (mutual funds and brokerage), and insurance data will be available to consumers. It will also expand beyond the financial sector to allow healthcare and telecom data to be accessible to the individual via AA.

Can AAs view or ‘aggregate’ personal data? Is the data sharing secure?

• Account Aggregators cannot see the data; they merely take it from one financial institution to another based on an individual's direction and consent. Contrary to the name, they cannot 'aggregate' your data. AAs are not like technology companies which aggregate your data and create detailed profiles of you.
• The data AAs share is encrypted by the sender and can be decrypted only by the recipient. The end to end encryption and use of technology like the ‘digital signature’ makes the process much more secure than sharing paper documents.

Can a consumer decide they don’t want to share data?

• Yes. Registering with an AA is fully voluntary for consumers. If the bank the consumer is using has joined the network, a person can choose to register on an AA, choose which accounts they want to link, and share their data from one of their accounts for some specific purpose to a new lender or financial institution at the stage of giving ‘consent’ via one of the Account Aggregators. A customer can reject a consent to share request at any time. If a consumer has accepted to share data in a recurring manner over a period (e.g. during a loan period), it can also be revoked at any time later as well by the consumer.

If a consumer has shared my data once with an institution, for how long can they use it?

• The exact time period for which the recipient institution will have access will be shown to the consumer at the time of consent for data sharing.

How can a customer get registered with an AA?

• You can register with an AA through their app or website. AA will provide a handle (like username) which can be used during the consent process.
• Today, four apps are available for download (Finvu, OneMoney, CAMS Finserv, and NADL) with operational licenses to be AAs. Three more have received in principle approval from RBI (PhonePe, Yodlee, and Perfios) and may be launching apps soon.

Does a customer need to register with every AA?

• No, a customer can register with any AA to access data from any bank on the network.

Does a customer need to pay the AA for using this facility?

• This will depend on the AA. Some AAs may be free because they are charging a service fee to financial institutions. Some may charge a small user fee.

What new services can a customer access if their bank has joined the AA network of data sharing?

• The two key services that will be improved for an individual is access to loans and access to money management. If a customer wants to get a small business or personal loan today, there are many documents that need to be shared with the lender. This is a cumbersome and manual process today, which affects the time taken to procure the loan and access to a loan. Similarly, money management is difficult today because data is stored in many different locations and cannot be brought together easily for analysis.
• Through Account Aggregator, a company can access tamper-proof secure data quickly and cheaply, and fast track the loan evaluation process so that a customer can get a loan. Also, a customer may be able to access a loan without physical collateral, by sharing trusted information on a future invoice or cash flow directly from a government system like GST or GeM.

The Government has approved Production Linked Incentive (PLI) Scheme for Textiles - for MMF Apparel, MMF Fabrics and 10 segments/ products of Technical Textiles with a budgetary outlay of Rs. 10,683 crore.

PLI scheme for Textiles will promote production of high value MMF Fabric, Garments and Technical Textiles in country. The incentive structure has been so formulated that industry will be encouraged to invest in fresh capacities in these segments. This will give a major push to growing high value MMF segment which will complement the efforts of cotton and other natural fibre-based textiles industry in generating new opportunities for employment and trade, resultantly helping India regain its historical dominant status in global textiles trade.

The Technical Textiles segment is a new age textile, whose application in several sectors of economy, including infrastructure, water, health and hygiene, defense, security, automobiles, aviation, etc. will improve the efficiencies in those sectors of economy. Government has also launched a National Technical Textiles Mission in the past for promoting R&D efforts in that sector. PLI will help further, in attracting investment in this segment.

There are two types of investment possible with different set of incentive structure:

1. Any person, (which includes firm / company) willing to invest minimum Rs. 300 Crore in Plant, Machinery, Equipment and Civil Works (excluding land and administrative building cost) to produce products of Notified lines (MMF Fabrics, Garment) and products of Technical Textiles, shall be eligible to apply for participation in first part of the scheme.
2. In the second part any person, (which includes firm / company) willing to invest minimum Rs. 100 Crore shall be eligible to apply for participation in this part of the scheme.

In addition, priority will be given for investment in Aspirational Districts, Tier 3, Tier 4 towns, and rural areas and due to this priority Industry will be incentivized to move to backward area. This scheme will positively impact especially States like Gujarat, UP, Maharashtra, Tamilnadu, Punjab, AP, Telangana, Odisha, etc.

Highlights

• With this, India is poised to regain its dominance in Global Textiles Trade.
• Leveraging Economies of Scale, the scheme will help Indian companies to emerge as Global Champions.
• Help create additional employment of over 7.5 lakh people directly and several lakhs more for supporting activities.
• Scheme will also pave the way for participation of women in large numbers.
• Incentives worth Rs. 10,683 crore will be provided to industry over five years.
• It is expected that this scheme will result in fresh investment of above Rs 19,000 crore and additional production turnover of over Rs.3 lakh crore in five years.
• Higher priority for investment in Aspirational Districts & Tier 3/4 towns.
• Scheme will positively impact especially States like Gujarat, UP, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, AP, Telangana, Odisha etc.

On 30^th August the Department of Expenditure, Ministry of Finance has released an amount of Rs. 13,385.70 crore to 25 States for providing grants to the Rural Local Bodies. This Grant-in-aid is the 1st installment of Tied grants of the year 2021-22.

• The grants have been released as per the recommendations of the 15th Finance Commission.

Tied Grants

• Tied grants are released to the Rural Local Bodies (RLBs) for improving two critical services namely
1. Sanitation and maintenance of open-defecation free (ODF) status, and
2. Supply of drinking water, rain water harvesting and water recycling.
• Out of the total Grant-in-aid allocated for Panchayati Raj institutions, 60 percent is ‘Tied Grant’. It’s earmarked for national priorities like drinking water supply, rainwater harvesting and sanitation.
• Remaining 40 percent is ‘Untied Grant’ or Basic Grants and is to be utilized at the discretion of the Panchayati Raj institutions for location specific felt needs, except for payment of salaries.
• Tied grants are meant to ensure availability of additional funds to the Rural Local Bodies over and above the funds allocated by the Centre and the State for sanitation and drinking water under the Centrally Sponsored Schemes.
• The States are required to transfer the grants to the Rural Local Bodies within 10 working days of their receipt from the Union Government. Any delay beyond 10 working days requires the State Governments to release the grants with interest.

On 25^th August 2021, the Ministry of Jal Shakti has launched ‘SUJALAM’, a ‘100 days campaign’ as part of the ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav’ celebrations to create more and more ODF Plus villages by undertaking waste water management at village level particularly through creation of 1 million Soak-pits and also other greywater management activities.

• The effort of campaign would be directed towards achieving the ODF plus status for villages across the country in an accelerated manner in a short time.
• The campaign will not only build desired infrastructure i.e. soak pit for management of greywater in villages but will also aid in sustainable management of water bodies.
• The disposal of waste water and clogging of water bodies in the villages or on the outskirts of the villages remain one of the major problems.
• The Campaign would help in management of the wastewater and in turn would help to revive the water bodies.
• Furthermore, the campaign would boost the momentum of Swachh Bharat Mission (Grameen) Phase-II activities through community participation and it will increase awareness about ODF-plus activities - hence ensuring long term maintenance and sustainability of built infrastructure.