President inaugurates smart model village pilot project

President Pranab Mukherjee inaugurated a smart model village pilot project at Rashtrapati Bhavan. It is a landmark initiative to replicate the experience in transforming the President’s estate into a smart model township in five selected villages in Haryana. Also this initiative would not remain confined to these five villages but spread to the entire country because progress and development can be achieved at the desirable speed only in partnership with these decision-makers in the villages.

The five villages which will be developed into smart villages under this pilot project are Dhaula, Alipur, Harichandpur and Taj Nagar in Gurgaon district; and Rojka Meo in Mewat district of Haryana. The President had announced this pilot project on the occasion of the inauguration of the Intelligent Operations Centre (IOC) at Rashtrapati Bhavan and the launching of a Mobile App ‘Monitor’ for transformation of President’s Estate into a smart township on May 19.

Modi set for four-nation Africa tour

In a bid to strengthen India-Africa ties, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, will undertake his first visit to the “African mainland” between July 7 and 11, covering four countries. This visit reflects India’s desire to further strengthen and reinvigorate bilateral ties with our African partners which were renewed at the successful IAFS-III in October last year. The visit will provide opportunities to build on close contacts at the highest political level. Since taking charge in May 2014, Prime Minister Modi has visited Seychelles and Mauritius that are members of the African Union.

Mr Modi will leave on July 7 for Mozambique, where he will hold bilateral talks with President Felipe Nyusi.

Diaspora meet: The next stop will be South Africa where Mr Modi will meet President Jacob Zuma and other senior African leaders.

Mr Modi will visit Tanzania on July 10 where he will hold bilateral meeting with President John Pombe Joseph Magufuli. On July 11, Mr Modi will be in Nairobi, Kenya, where he will address the University of Nairobi.

A source connected to Prime Minister’s travel plans has confirmed Mr Modi will address two major meetings with members of Indian diaspora in Johannesburg and Nairobi on July 8 and 10.

Skill banks to train workers for global market

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s plan to make India “the human resource capital” of the world will first take off in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, where the government is setting up 50 global skill banks this year to train potential immigrant workers in 110 job roles as per international standards.

These banks, or training centres, will impart skills across sectors such as medicine and healthcare, hospitality, IT, construction, automobile and retail trade — where job opportunities exist or are likely to arise across different countries. Before they emigrate, youth trained in these skill banks would also be made familiar with the respective local culture and language of the country they obtain a job in as well as its work ethic.

“Uttar Pradesh and Bihar were selected first due to their high population and for having the record for the maximum migration for overseas employment.

The Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship is likely to sign a pact with the External Affairs Ministry to co-operate on the initiative to realise the Prime Minister’s vision. By the end of this month, about 20 global skill banks are expected to be up and running, with another 30 becoming operational by the end of the 2016-17 period.

New job destinations: Immigration to the Gulf region has traditionally been high and it will continue to be an important destination for job-seekers.

There are also opportunities to be tapped in south-east Asia, Germany, Sweden, Norway and Canada. In the long run, ageing countries like Japan would need a lot of geriatric care-givers and Indian nurses are globally recognised for their skills. Reputed manpower placement agencies have also been roped in.

India successfully tested surface-to-air missile

Scoring a hat-trick, India successfully test fired the new surface-to-air missile developed jointly with Israel from a defence base off Odisha coast in a third consecutive trial of the air defence system.

The missile with a strike range of 70 km was launched from the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Chandipur.

With a third consecutive successful test firing this time, the Medium Range Surface to Air Missile (MRSAM) air defence system has achieved a hat-trick

With this, MRSAM system has proved the air defence capability for three different boundary envelopes of the target, it said.

Defence Research and Development Organisation created history by conducting three consecutive successful trials of the missile for Indian Air Force.

Post merger, SBI to absorb corporate branches of associates

State Bank of India (SBI) will absorb the corporate branches of its associates after the merger. The country’s largest lender had already started the process of merging five of its associate banks, a process that is expected to completed by the end of the financial year. On merging the retail branches, B.Sriram, Managing Director, SBI, said the bank had to develop a detailed plan. He cited the example of State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur which had more presence in the interior of Rajasthan while there are more SBI branches in cities. SBI alone has close to 16,500 branches while the group has over 22,000 branches.

India’s thriving biodiversity: 445 new species added in 2015

Four species of reptiles, six species of amphibians, 26 species of fishes, three species of wild ginger and three of figs are among the 445 species new to science identified in India in 2015. The figure includes 262 animal species and 183 plant species.

Some of the notable additions to the list of animals include a rock gecko (Hemidactylus yajurvedi) found in Kanker Chhattishgarh, a new frog species (Fejervarya gomantaki) from the Western Ghats, and a shiny new species of fish (Barilius ardens), also from the Western Ghats.

Among the plants, a new species of ginger Zingiber bipinianum has been found in the South Garo hills of Meghalaya, and a species of mushroom (Bondarzewia zonata) has been collected from north Sikkim at an altitude of 2,829 m.

The most discoveries were made in the Eastern Himalaya region, which accounts for 19 per cent of the total discoveries followed by the Western Ghats (18 per cent) and Andaman and Nicobar Islands at about 15 per cent, BSI director Paramjit Singh said.

ZSI Director Kailash Chandra said the new discoveries reflect the faunal-diversity potential of ecosystems in India. The country is home to 97,514 species of animals.

Mr. Javadekar announced the setting up of two new regional centres of ZSI at Bhuj in Gujarat and Gangtok in Sikkim. At present, the ZSI has 16 regional centres.