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1. Hon’ble President Shri Ram Nath Kovind awards the President’s Colour to the Submarine Arm of Indian Navy

The commissioning of the first Submarine, INS Kalvari on 08 Dec 1967 laid the foundation of the Submarine Arm. 2017, the Golden Jubilee year is being celebrated as the “Year of the Submarine” by the Indian Navy. The submarine arm has been at the forefront of all offensive operations of the Indian Navy and played a particularly stellar role in the 1971 Indo Pak war. During the 1971 war four submarines were actively deployed on both the Eastern and Western Maritime theatres of operations in the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea. Their presence achieved the desired deterrent effect and restricted the enemy operation at sea to a considerable extent.

Personnel of Submarine Arm were awarded one Maha Vir Chakra, two Vir Chakras, one Shaurya Chakra and a number of Mention–in–Dispatches for acts of bravery during the war. The Indian Navy has rich experience of operating six classes of submarines which includes conventional and nuclear submarines. Indian Navy by way of its Maritime Strategy has adopted a strategy of Deterrence to maintain peace. Submarines singularly form the most important pillar of this strategy.

The Indian Navy was first of the three Services to be presented the President’s Colour on 27 May 1951. And today this honour was bestowed on the Submarine Arm in recognition of the yeoman service rendered both in peace and at war.

2. CBDT extends date till 31.3.18 for linking of Aadhaar with PAN

Under the provisions of recently introduced section 139AA of the Income-tax Act, 1961 (the Act), with effect from 01.07.2017, all taxpayers having Aadhaar Number or Enrolment Number are required to link the same with Permanent Account Number (PAN).

It has come to notice that some of the taxpayers have not yet completed the linking of PAN with Aadhaar. Therefore, to facilitate the process of linking, it has been decided to further extend the time for linking of Aadhaar with PAN till 31.03.2018.

Shri J P Nadda releases National Trachoma Survey Report (2014-17)

He declared thatIndia is now free from ‘infective trachoma’, and termed this as a momentous achievement. Shri J P Nadda stated that the survey findings indicate that the active trachoma infection has been eliminated among children in all the survey districts with overall prevalence of only 0.7%. This is much below the elimination criteria of infective trachoma as defined by the WHO- active trachoma is considered eliminated if the prevalence of active infection among children below 10 yearsis less than 5%, he added. Minister of State (HFW), Smt. Anupriya Patel was also present at the release of the Survey Report. The Health Ministers congratulated all the people associated with the survey, especially the frontline health workers who have worked often in try conditions to conduct the survey.

Trachoma (Rohe/Kukre-रोहे/कुक्करे) is a chronic infective disease of the eye and is the leading cause of infective blindness globally. Trachoma is a disease of poor environmental and personal hygiene and inadequate access to water and sanitation. It affects the conjunctiva under the eyelids. Repeated infections cause scarring leading to in-turning ofthe eyelashes and eyelids. This further causes damage to the cornea and blindness. It is found affecting the population in certain pockets of the States of North India like Gujarat, Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Nicobar Islands. Trachoma infection of the eyes was the most important cause of blindness in India in 1950s and over 50% population was affected in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Punjab, and Uttar Pradesh. It was the most important cause of corneal blindness in India, affecting young children.

3. Integrated Command & Control center projects being developed in 20 Cities--10 more Cities have issued tenders: Centers already Operational in Pune, Surat, Vadodara & Producing positive results: Hardeep S Puri.

Delivering his inaugural address at the workshop, the Minister informed that for smart reuse and wastewater projects, 33 cities have issued tenders, and work has begun in 16 of them. In order to promote renewable energy usage in the cities, projects for providing Solar projects on rooftops of government buildings have been encouraged. Till date, 44 cities have issued tenders, and work has begun in 38 cities.

Informing about the Smart Cities Challenge, Sh Puri stated that it promoted an increase in participatory activities and means of citizen engagement at the city and neighbourhood levels. More than 24 lakh citizens were consulted through MyGov website and almost 120 lakh through other means. “The challenge is to conduct citizen consultation during implementation. The officials at city, state & centre levels, have put in tireless efforts from conceptualization to roll out and implementation of these missions”, he added.

The AMRUT and Smart Cities Missions can be seen as inter-linked programmes where AMRUT follows a project-based approach and Smart Cities Mission an area-based strategy. Although area based approach is not new, the way Smart City is conceptualized, it is meant to set examples that can be replicated both within and outside the Smart City. It is, therefore, expected to catalyse creation of similar Smart Cities in various parts of the country, Sh Puri further added.

4. National Conference on E-Courts Project E-Filing facility launched

The Conference was chaired by the Hon’ble Mr. Justice Madan B. Lokur the Judge-In-Charge of eCommittee and co-Chaired by Dr. Alok Srivastava, Secretary DoJ. The Conference focused on the progress, sharing of best practices, experiences, important issues and emerging challenges under the Project.

The eCourts Mission Mode Project (Phase I 2010-15; Phase II 2015-19) is a national eGovernance project for ICT enablement of district and subordinate courts of the country. It is being implemented by the Government of India with a total outlay of 1670 crores (Phase II). The major objectives of the Project are to make whole judicial system ICT enabled by putting in place adequate and modern hardware and connectivity; automation of workflow management in all courts; electronic movement of records from taluka/trial to appeal courts; installation of video conferencing (VC) facility and recording of witness through Video Conferencing; connecting all courts in the country to the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) through WAN and additional redundant connectivity; citizen centric facilities such as electronic filing, e-payment and use of mobile applications in all courts; touch screen based kiosks in each court complex, full computerisation of State and district level judicial and service academies and centres.

Specific targets set under the Project include: computerization of all the courts (around 20400) and DLSA and TLSC; WAN and cloud connectivity in 3500 court complexes; full Installation and use of Video Conferencing facility at 3000 Court Complexes and 1150 prisons; charting out key identified citizen services like electronic filing, daily orders, delivery of decrees, online case status in all the district courts etc.

Use of National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) for Judicial planning and monitoring, generating various statistical reports for administration and policy decisions, was demonstrated. A need was expressed that management users may be created for principal district judges as well as for portfolio judges.

SMS push service has been widely used across the country by the litigants and lawyers. This SMS service is more popular in remote areas where mobile phones without internet facility, are used by the litigants and lawyers. Similarly, SMS pull service is made operational recently. Anybody can send CNR no. to 9766899899 and in response, he would get the case status.

It was well appreciated that as per the data available on eTaal, number of electronic transactions, transacted under eCourts Project are very high and are amongst top 5 performers with number of electronic transactions being more than 40 crores.

5. International conference on Ground water

The Conference is taking place at a time when water scenario in the country, especially the ground water scenario, is getting worse day by day. During the past decades, groundwater usage in the country has grown many folds and today 80% of the rural domestic needs and 65% of the irrigation water requirement and 50% of industrial and urban water needs are sourced from our ground water resources. Over exploitation of ground water has started threatening the sustenance of agricultural activities in many key regions in the country including Punjab, Bundelkhand and Rajasthan posing a grave threat to the food security in future. Moreover, climate change is expected to alter the ground water recharge regimes across the country due to increase in extreme rainfall events. Over exploitation of ground water has also started affecting the ground water quality in many areas from the geogenic source of contaminants such as arsenic. The Conference will discuss these burning issues in 10 focal themes spread over three days. It is expected to look into the synergistic policy options between various sectors linked with water resources in the country and draw a roadmap to address these challenges for the development goals of 2030.