Pib

Pib

1. Dr. Harsh vardhan inaugurates high performance computing (HPC) facility at Noida

Union Minister for Earth Science, Environment, Forest & Climate Change, Dr. Harsh Vardhan has urged scientists and researchers to strengthen fundamental science and move towards solution science. Dedicating to the nation, the High Performance Computer (HPC) System named ‘Mihir’ (meaning ‘Sun’) at the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF) at Noida today, Dr. Harsh Vardhan said that with this facility, India’s capacity in weather forecasting will improve. The Minister said that the HPC facility will be India’s largest HPC facility in terms of peak capacity and performance and will propel India’s ranking from the 368th position to around the top 30 in the Top 500 list of HPC facilities in the world. He also pointed out that India will now also be ranked 4th, after Japan, UK and USA for dedicated HPC resources for weather/climate community. Dr. Harsh Vardhan expressed confidence that soon India will be able to match the capacities of these four nations. Stating that India’s scientific research capabilities can be compared to the best in the world, he pointed out that Government sponsored National Laboratories top the institutions contribute most in terms of number of research papers in the field of Earth Sciences.

2. Government e Marketplace announces National Sellers On-boarding Campaign

Government e Marketplace (GeM), has been envisaged by Government of India as the National Procurement Portal of India. GeM strives to keep pace with ever-evolving technological challenges and stake holder aspirations and in line with this endeavour, GeM is coming up with a scaled up third version. The GeM 2.0 was launched as a pilot in August 2016 and its success led to this massive transformation program - GeM 3.0 which would offer standardised and enriched catalogue management, powerful search engine, real time price comparison, template-based Bid and RA creation, demand aggregation, e-EMD, e-PBG, user rating, advanced MIS and analytics and more.

Some of the notable enhancements in the 3.0 version:

Market Based generic requirements across all government agencies

Standardisation of specifications of both products and services enabling empirical price comparability

Completely transparent transactions across all ranges

Generic standards established through universal service levels and cost comparison enabled

Open and dynamic market place with rating based on performance of user on website

3. “Taking Khadi: local to Global”

Textiles and apparel sector has made a significant contribution by providing both direct and indirect employment to almost 35 and 50million Indians respectively, making it the largest employment sector after agriculture. This makes Khadi an important segment for concentrating towards export promotion.A round table discussion on taking KHADI:local to global was organized by Indian Institute of Foreign Trade on 30th Jan 2018 with support from KVIC and UDAANSKILL. The event focused on connecting the global demand and supply of Khadi, identifying newer markets and product diversification; developing promotional strategies to enter newer markets, inputs on trade policy, market access at WTO front, compliances, design interventions and possibilities of CSR interventions from corporates and PSUs.

Shri Suresh Prabhu, Hon’ble Minister for Commerce and Industry said that “The export prospects of Khadi is rest assured with world moving towards natural and Eco-friendly Products. More and more people are becoming conscious of responsibility towards the environment and ecology and greater demand is being generated for bio-degradable and Eco-friendly products. It is for this reason the new MEIS 2015-20 policy also emphasizes on export incentives on eco-friendly textiles giving it a 34% growth last years from 52,000 crore to 70,000 crore turn over”.

The minister further added that this round table discussion on “Khadi exports” is pertinent considering the fact that while textile sector being the largest source of employment generation in the country contributing to country’s 15% exports; share of Khadi sector is very low (less than 0.22%) in total textile sector. Hence focus on exports of this sector becomes important.End to end marketing strategy with support from trading houses and academic institutes like IIFT is the need of the hour, he said.

4. MoS Dr Jitendra Singh visits river Devika project site in Udhampur

The Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh visited the site of River Devika Cleaning Project in Udhampur today, which has been included in Government of India’s National River Conservation Project (NRCP).

He was accompanied by Member of Parliament Shri Shamsher Singh Manhas, Deputy Commissioner Shri Ravinder Kumar and other senior officers. He was informed that the cleaning process around river Devika had already started and the civil work of construction of cremation ghats etc, will be undertaken after the appraisal of the DPR by IIT experts, which may take some more time.

Earlier in the morning, Dr Jitendra Singh arrived at the venue of the 3-day “Vision 2018” exhibition, where he went around each of the stalls depicting achievements of different Ministries and Departments over the last 3 years of the Union Government led by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi.

5. MIFF 2018: YOUNG DIRECTORS DARE TO DEAL WITH BOLD SUBJECTS AND UNTOUCHED SOCIAL ISSUES

The ongoing Mumbai International Film Festival is a rightful platform for young and experimental film makers who dare to touch some bold subjects and untouched social issues. The budding director duo Harshal Wadkar and Vinod Kamble , have chosen some unusual path while making short films, respectively “Conversation” and “Post Mortem” which were screened during the MIFF2018 in National Competition section.

Harshad Wadkar’s film ‘Conversation’ is a story of a young girl who walks into a local lodge of the busy city to experience her first lovemaking moment with her boyfriend. As their conversation begins, disturbing secrets of her life begin to unfold. While sharing his idea about the film during press meet, Harshal said that many times we do not share our inner thoughts even with closed ones. We live in busy cities crowed with people around but rarely found soul mate to share our intimate thoughts, fantasies . Every day we deal with a situation like ‘Her Taraf Her Jagah Beshumar Addami , Phir Bhi Tanhaiyon ka Shikar Aadmi ….’ Harshal, in his film has tried to break this ice of taboo, social norms and so called sanskars. He has chosen to shoot the film in black n white considering more powerful medium to express suppressed thoughts of a confused woman played by Pragalbha Kolekar . This is Harshal’s second film which got selected in MIFF. His previous short film “Cycle” had also shortlisted in Competition Section at MIFF in 2016.

VInod Kamble’s film ‘Post Mortem’ is a story of 14 year old boy Gopi who belong to a manual scavenging family, He lost his father and responsibility of the entire family is upon him. In order to support his family Gopi is forced to drop his education and help his mother in manual scavenging jobs. Earlier in school he had won a Handwriting competition which was organised on the occasion of Republic Day. The situation leaves in a dilemma between Work and Education.