Pib

Pib

1. “ASEAN–India poised for new synergy of robust cooperation and promising future”: Lee Hseing Loong

The visiting premier has suggested three promising areas of mutually beneficial collaboration.

First, ASEAN and India should redouble efforts to promote trade and investment. We need to keep existing pathways up to date and relevant, including the AIFTA. We should work together to conclude a high quality Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), surpassing the existing AIFTA. This would create an integrated Asian market comprising nearly half the world’s population and a third of the world’s GDP. Stream-lining rules and regulations will stimulate investments in both directions, complement India’s ‘Act East’ policy and facilitate ‘Made in India’ exports to the region.

Second, our people will benefit greatly from greater land, air and maritime connectivity. He has appreciated India’s efforts to improve land connectivity, including the extension of the trilateral India-Myanmar-Thailand Highway, and India’s $1 billion line of credit to promote infrastructure connectivity with ASEAN. He adds that ASEAN looks forward to working closely with India to boost our physical connectivity, including by expeditiously concluding the ASEAN-India Air Transport Agreement.

One objective of Singapore’s chairmanship is to develop an ASEAN Smart Cities Network, and here Singapore and India are natural partners. India is rapidly urbanizing and has set itself a goal of establishing 100 smart cities. Singapore, an urbanized city-state, is ready to partner India on this journey and help develop urban solutions based on our own experience. Andhra Pradesh’s new capital city of Amaravati is one example.

2. Capacity Building and Creation of Quality Assets – Major Thrust Areas Under MGNREGS

Mahatma Gandhi NREGA aims at strengthening the rural livelihood resource base through creation of productive and durable assets for sustainable growth. To ensure this, there has been a lot of emphasis on timely completion of works and on improving the quality of works, during the last three years. There has been equal thrust on capacity building of dedicated MGNREGS functionaries and community resource persons towards upgradation of their skills for improved quality of implementation of the Programme.

Completion of incomplete works under MGNREGS, is a major concern of the government. As such, the Ministry is focusing on completion of all 61.39 lakh works which have been lying incomplete out of a total of 4.54 crore works that have been taken up since inception of the Programme. Owing to the close monitoring and intense engagement with the states, the Ministry has been able to ensure completion of over 1.02 crore works during FY 2016-17 and current FY, so far. We hope to improve completion further through effective monitoring.

Given the diverse nature and scale of works being executed and the varied capacities of stakeholders involved, separate training modules to suit the requirements of the target groups have been developed with support from domain specific apex organisations. These training modules have formed the basis of imparting training to technical personnel under the banner SAKSHAM.

Imparting skill training to MGNREGA workers is a key focus area. 6367 Bare Foot Technicians have been trained, so far, for improving the quality and durability of assets through appropriate work planning, timely monitoring and supervision of works and also to bridge the gap in availability of technical resources at Gram Panchayat level. These are local youth (10th Pass) from among the MGNREGA worker household/ Mate/ Supervisor who have been identified and provided 90 days of residential training, assessed and certified after successful completion of training at a cost of Rs 62,040/- per person including stipend @ Rs 150/- per day.

3. Several decisions taken to ease business: Dr Jitendra Singh

Dr Jitendra Singh has said that over the last three years, the Government has taken a number of decisions to "ease doing of business". As a result of this, India has began to attract investors from all over, who are willing to set up ventures even in the hitherto lesser preferred regions like the North Eastern part of country. In other words, Dr Jitendra Singh said, India, including the Northeast, is fast emerging as a preferred destination for business and entrepreneurship.

Speaking at a "Luncheon Round-table" meet on the topic "Sustainable Production through Fourth Industrial Revolution Innovations" in Davos, Switzerland yesterday, Dr Jitendra Singh allayed the fears expressed by some of the participants about excessive regulatory controls exercised by certain governments across the world and said, that in the last over three years, the Government of India has made a conscious effort to bring in ease of business through relaxation of avoidable regulations. He said, within a short span of 3 to 4 years, the Government has done away with nearly 1,500 such rules and regulations which had become obsolete and irrelevant in this age.

Expressing his views on the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Robots to promote production and business in the times to come, Dr Jitendra Singh said, while these technological advances can prove an asset by contributing to sustainable development, the challenge, however, would be to ensure that human intelligence does not end up becoming a slave of Artificial Intelligence. He said, since this is the first generation faced with this new phenomenon, it might take another one or two generations to actually evolve a mechanism of healthy synergy between the Human Intelligence and the Artificial Intelligence. The most ideal situation would be when the human and the artificial components supplement each other's resources to accomplish Fourth Industrial Revolution Innovations, he said.

4. Padma Awards 2018 announced

Padma Awards - one of the highest civilian Awards of the country, are conferred in three categories, namely, Padma Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri. The Awards are given in various disciplines/ fields of activities, viz.- art, social work, public affairs, science and engineering, trade and industry, medicine, literature and education, sports, civil service, etc. ‘Padma Vibhushan’ is awarded for exceptional and distinguished service; ‘Padma Bhushan’ for distinguished service of high order and ‘Padma Shri’ for distinguished service in any field. The awards are announced on the occasion of Republic Day every year.

These awards are conferred by the President of India at ceremonial functions which are held at Rashtrapati Bhawan usually around March/ April every year. This year the President of India has approved conferment of 85 Padma Awards including two duo cases (in a duo case, the award is counted as one) as per list below. The list comprises 3 Padma Vibhushan, 9 Padma Bhushan and 73 Padma Shri Awards. 14 of the awardees are women and the list also includes 16 persons from the category of Foreigners/NRI/PIO/OCI and 3 Posthumous awardees.