17-11-22 Daily-Karnataka-KPSC Current Affairs

Only 13% of government schools (upper primary to higher secondary) inKarnataka, Home to the countrys 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, Karnatakas 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.

The Finance Ministry has finalised the framework to issue sovereign green in line with global standards, according to sources. The government intends to mobilise Rs 16,000 crore from the issuance of green bonds during the second half of the current financial year. It is a part of the borrowing programme for the second half of this fiscal.

These rupee-denominated papers will have long tenure to suit the requirement of green Infrastructure projects.

The government is planning a total borrowing of Rs 5.92 lakh crore during the October-March period of the current fiscal.

The government had in the Budget for 2022-23 projected a gross market borrowing of Rs 14.31 lakh crore.

The Transport4All Challenge is an initiative of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Government of India, that aims at enhancing the mobility experience of citizens. The Challenge focuses on digital innovation and invites cities, citizens, and innovators to join hands to develop contextual digital solutions to improve formal as well as informal public transport to better serve the mobility needs of all citizens.

Three Stages of the Challenge

The Transport4All through Digital Innovation Challenge comprises three stages:

Stage I PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION: Cities, with the support of NGOs, identify key recurring problems that citizens and public transport operators face

Stage II SOLUTION GENERATION: Startups develop prototypes of solutions to improve public transport with inputs from cities and NGOs

Stage III PILOT TESTING: Cities engage Startups for large-scale pilots and refine the solutions based on citizen feedback.

MoHUA launched the Urban Outcomes Framework 2022 in April, 2022 as an initiative to undertake a transparent and comprehensive assessment of cities based on cross-city outcomes across major sectors. The Framework also includes the third round of Ease of Living Index. The Ease of Living Index, as a 360-degree assessment, aims to evaluate cities across India based on the Quality Of Life, Economic Ability, and Sustainability.

Recently theUnited Nations(UN)has decided to set up asatellite-basedmonitoring systemMARS: Methane Alert and Response Systemfor trackingmethane emissionsand alerting governments and corporations to respond.