06-07-11-22 Daily-Karnataka-KPSC Current Affairs

Only 13% of government schools (upper primary to higher secondary) inKarnataka, Home to the country’s IT capital, haveICTlabs, says the latest U-DISE (Unified District Information System for Education) data released by the ministry of school education and Literacy on Thursday. Worse, the Percentage of government schools with a functional ICT (Information & Communication Technology) lab is just 7%.

However, Karnataka’s education department said the figures are not updated. “The data could be reflecting only labs built using government funds. Almost all schools have labs through donors or other means.

Last year alone, 764 schools were given permission. Due to Covid-19, we could implement it only in 502 schools thus far. We have a target of completing it by 2025,” said an official of SamagraShikshana Karnataka.

As per U-DISE, there are 28,634 government schools with upper primary, secondary and higher secondary sections in the state. Of these, only 3,924 have ICT labs and they are functional only in 1,999 schools. While 18% aided schools have ICT labs, only 4% have functional ones.

Only 8% of government schools in Karnataka have functional mobile phones for TEACHING purposes, 5% have smart classrooms, 15% have projectors, 3% have PCs with functional Integrated Teaching Learning Devices, 3% have functional tablets, 11% government schools laptops and 9% have cyber security lessons for children.

The has proposed reducing the amount a candidate contesting polls can pay in cash for campaign-related expenditure from the existing 10,000 to 2,000 to make their transactions more transparent.

As of now, the candidates have to ensure that all payments in excess of 10,000 are made by cheque, draft or bank transfer through a bank account opened exclusively for the purpose of election expenditure.

Article 44 contained in part IV of the Constitution says that the state shall endeavour to secure for the citizens a throughout the territory of India. While there is no draft or model document yet for the UCC, the framers of the Constitution envisioned that it would be a uniform set of laws that would replace the distinct personal laws of each religion with regard to matters like marriage, divorce, adoption, and inheritance. Part IV of the Constitution outlines the Directive Principles of State Policy, which, while not enforceable or justiciable in a court of law, are fundamental to the countrys Governance.

It has been argued that while India does have uniformity in most criminal and civil matters like the Criminal Procedure Code, Civil Procedure Code, and the Contract Act, States have made over 100 amendments to the CrPC and IPC, as well as several amendments to civil laws.

The government, which has allowed export of 6 million tonne of sugar till May 31 of the ongoing 2022-23 season, on Sunday said it could consider allowing more export after periodic assessment of domestic production.

A Food Ministry notification issued on November 5 said export quota of 6 million tonne has been permitted from November 1 to May 31, 2023, with an option for millers to export on their own or through exporters or swap with domestic sale quota.

Mill-wise sugar export quota has been fixed for the current season (October-September) based on Average production of sugar mills in the last three years and average sugar production in the country in the same period.

At the end of 2022-23 season, it is expected that most sugar mills will be able to sell their production either in domestic or international market through exports and will clear the cane dues of farmers in time.

Sugar production stood at record 35.92 million tonne in 2021-22 season. Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka are the top three sugar producing States in the country.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), after missions to the moon and mars, has now set its eyes on Venus and also plans to explore the dark side of the moon in collaboration with Japans Space Agency.

While making a presentation on ISROs future missions, the Director of the Ahmedabad-based Physical Research Laboratory Anil Bhardwaj said that the space agency plans on sending a probe to Mars. He also informed that ISRO was in talks with the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) for sending a lunar rover to explore the permanent shadow region to the moon.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) plans on launching its third lunar mission in June 2023.

Notably, the Chandrayaan-3 mission is a follow-up of Chandrayaan-2 of July 2019, which aimed to land a rover on the lunar south pole. It was sent aboard the countrys most powerful geosynchronous launch vehicle, the GSLV-Mk3.