KARNATAKA

• Drastic drop in number of RTE quota seats in private schools

 

• In the next academic year, the number of seats reserved in private schools under the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, will reduce by 96% — from 1.52 lakh in the 2018-19 academic year, to a likely drop of around 5,000 for the 2019-20 academic year.
• The Department of Public Instruction had amended the rules so that students from weaker sections and disadvantaged communities avail reservation in a private school only in the absence of a government or aided school in their neighbourhood.
• According to the department, a revenue village is considered a neighbourhood in rural areas, while a ward is considered as the neighbourhood in municipal corporation as well as BBMP limits. In urban areas other than the municipal corporations, however, the entire urban local body is considered a neighbourhood.

INTERNATIONAL

 

·         World’s fastest 1TB microSD card revealed at MWC

 

• Two 1 terabyte microSDcards were revealed by companies Western Digital-owned SanDisk and Micron during Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona.
• The 1TB SanDisk Extreme UHS-I microSD card, which the company claims to be the world’s fastest, reaches speeds of up to 160 Mbps.
• While Micron’s card, claimed to be the world’s first, reaches speeds of up to 100 Mbps.

 

 

NATIONAL

 

• India-Bangladesh Joint Military Exercise Sampriti – 2019

 

• As part of the ongoing India Bangladesh defence cooperation, a joint military exercise Sampriti-2019 will be conducted at Tangail, Bangladesh from 02 March to 15 March 2019.

 

• Exercise Sampriti-2019 is important bilateral defence cooperation between India and Bangladesh.

 

• This will be the eighth edition of the exercise which is hosted alternately by both countries.

 

• The exercise is aimed to strengthen and broaden the aspects of interoperability and cooperation between the Indian and Bangladesh Armies.

·         PM Modi unveils world’s largest Bhagavad Gita weighing 800 kg

• The world’s largest Bhagavad Gitaat ISKCON temple in south Delhi’s East of Kailash, has 670 pages, weighs 800 kgand is 2.8 metre tall and 2 metre wide (when closed).
• The book is dubbed as the ‘Astounding Bhagavad Gita’.
• Bhagavad Gita, often referred to as the Gita, is a sacred text, revered by the Hindus, and is part of the epic Mahabharata, containing the teachings of Lord Krishna to Arjuna on the battlefield.
• ISKCON – International Society for Krishna Consciousness

·         April-January fiscal deficit hits 121.5 per cent of full-year target

 

• India’s fiscal deficit during April-January stood at ₹7.7 lakh crore or 121.5% of budgeted target for the current financial year.
• Revenue deficit in April-January of FY19 was at Rs 5.9 lakh crore or 143.4% of the annual target.
• The gap between the government’s revenue and expenditure had stood at 113.7% in January 2018.

 

·         Himachal Pradesh Government declared Monkeys as vermin

 

• Monkey’s are declared as vermin by the Himachal Pradesh government.
• Around 11 districts,91 tehsils and sub-tehsils.

 

• Vermin are pests or wild animals that are believed to be harmful to crops, farm animals, or game, or which carry disease.

·         IRCTC Rail Connect mobile app win National e-Governance Award 2019

 

• Railway’s ticket booking mobile application – IRCTC Rail Connect mobile app and the Chhattisgarh government’s ‘Khanij online‘ and 14other such IT projects have been chosen for National e-Governance Awards 2019.
• Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation(IRCTC) Rail Connect mobile app, launched in January 2017, has been chosen for the special jury award for excellence in government process re-engineering for digital transformation.
• Railways collected revenue of over Rs 5,800 crorein 2018-19 (till December) through the App.

 

 

• Andhra Pradesh to get a new Railway zone’

 

• Southern Coast Railway will be a new zone of the Indian Railways.

 

• This new 18th railway zone of the country and will be headquartered at Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh.

 

• The new zone will comprise the existing Guntakal, Guntur and Vijayawada divisions that currently fall under the South Central Railway.

 

• The Indian Railways’ operations are currently divided into 17 zones, which are further sub-divided into divisions, each having a divisional headquarter.

 

• There are a total of 73 divisions at present.

 

 

• Assam launches PRANAM Commission

 

• Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal had launched the PRANAM Commission for the protection of parents of state government employees.

 

• PRANAM stands for Parents Responsibility and Norms for Accountability and Monitoring.

 

• It is the first of its kind Bill in the country.

 

• It is an effort to protect elderly parents of government employees in their times of need.

 

• The bill makes it mandatory for state government employees to look after their parents and unmarried differently abled siblings who do not have their own sources of income.