Notes:
The United Nations is hosting its first-ever World Oceans Conference at the UN Headquarters in New York, United States from June 5, 2017. The 5-day conference is co-hosted by the Governments of Fiji and Sweden with theme “Our oceans, our future: partnering for the implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 14”. The purpose of the conference is to find solutions to some of the toughest problems facing the oceans — that includes coral bleaching, plastic pollution, overfishing and rising sea levels. It also includes measures to protect coastal and blue carbon ecosystems such as mangroves, tidal marshes, seagrass, and coral reefs, and wider interconnected ecosystems, as well as enhancing sustainable fisheries management, including to restore fish stocks in the shortest time feasible at least to levels that can produce maximum sustainable yield.

Notes:
India’s first-ever Rural LED Street Lighting Project will be implemented by the Government of India (GoI) in Andhra Pradesh (AP). The Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL) under the Ministry of Power will retrofit10 lakh conventional street lights with LED lights in Gram Panchayats of 7 districts in AP. This is the first project for rural LED street lighting in the country under the GoI’s Street Lighting National Project (SLNP). In the first phase, the replacement will be undertaken in gram panchayats of the districts of Guntur, Prakasham, Nellore, Kurnool, Kadapa, Ananthapur and Chittoor. This replacement drive in rural areas will help the gram panchayats to cumulatively save approximately 147 million units of electricity annually and lead to reduction of 12 crore tonnes of CO2. The entire upfront capital cost of this project is being funded by French Development Agency Agence Française de Développement (AFD).

Notes:
India has signed a $39.2 million loan agreement with the World Bank (WB) for the ‘citizen-centric service delivery’ project in Assam. The programme size is $49 million, of which $39.2 million will be financed by the World Bank and the remaining amount will be funded out of state budget. The programme duration is 5 years. The purpose of the project is to improve access in the delivery of selected public services in Assam. The Project seeks to enable citizens to access services under the RTPS Act in a timely, efficient, and accountable manner. The Project adopts an integrated approach to improve access and accountability.

Notes:
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has inaugurated the 5th international conference of Spic Macay on June 5, 2017 at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi via video conferencing. The 7-day conference coincides with the 40th year of inception of SPIC MACAY. Every year Spic Macay organizes an International Convention to expose the youth from across the world to the rich and multi-hued culture of India. It is the Society for the promotion of Indian classical music and culture amongst youth.

Notes:
Dr. Sharad Kumar Jain has assumed the additional charge of Director General (DG) of National Water Development Agency (NWDA) under Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation. Presently, he is working as Scientist G with National Institute of Hydrology (NIH), Roorkee. Jain succeeds S. Masood Husain who has moved over as Member (WP&P), Central Water Commission.

Notes:
India has been ranked 45th out of 63 countries in the IMD’s world competitiveness rankings 2017. The list is compiled by the Switzerland-based International Institute for Management and Development (IMD)’s World Competitiveness Center (WCC). Hong Kong has topped the list, followed by Switzerland, Singapore, United States, Netherlands, Ireland and Denmark. The IMD measures how well countries manage all their resources and competencies to facilitate long-term value creation.

Notes:
Sudha Singh from Uttar Pradesh has won a gold medal in the women’s 3000m steeplechase at the 21st Federation Cup National Senior Athletics Championship in Patiala, Punjab on June 4, 2017. In the men’s 3000m steeplechase event, it was Naveen Kumar of Haryana who took the gold with a time of 8:50.85.

Notes:
The Telangana Government has become the only state government in India to launch the single-women pension scheme. Under the scheme, a financial assistance of Rs. 1,000 financial is given to single women of the state per month on humanitarian grounds. The scheme will benefit unmarried women, joginis and divorced women. About 1, 08,302 beneficiaries from 31 Districts have been identified by the officials. The single-women pension scheme is the result of petitions filed on the plight of single women deserted by their husbands and relatives.

Notes:
The TATA Projects has launched unique “Green Thumb” initiative in India to promote green cover and to protect the environment on 2017 World Environment Day (WED). The Green Thumb 2017 is in continuation to 2016 TATA Projects’ programme wherein it aimed to get 10,000 people to click (pledge) to plant a sapling on their behalf – the response received was a tremendous 23,000. Encouraged by the response, TATA Projects planted a total of over 42,000 saplings across the country in over 100 locations in the last one year (2016-17). This year, under Green Thumb initiative, the company will plants trees, citizens who wish to do their bit to save the environment, can express their support for the cause. They can do so by clicking on the banner to plant a sapling on the Green Thumb Microsite or on Facebook page, LinkedIn pagea/155507/ or on the company website www.tataprojects.com.

Notes:
India has been ranked 51st out of 63 countries in the 2017 IMD World Digital Competitiveness ranking. At the top of the digital ranking is Singapore, followed by Sweden, the USA, Finland and Denmark. For the first time, the IMD World Competitiveness Center has published a separate report ranking countries’ digital competitiveness. The new Digital Competitiveness Ranking (DCR) provides a measure of a country’s ability to adopt and explore digital technologies leading to transformation in government practices, business models and society in general. The ranking is based on three factors, which reflect the standing of a country in the dimensions of Knowledge, Technology and Future Readiness.