Swachhata hi Seva campaign of 2019 garners participation from more than 7 Crore Urban Residents, across 3200 Cities, from more than 1,06,000 Events & more than 7700 MT of plastic waste collected; Urban Areas of 35 states / UTs ODF - 4,167 cities certified ODF through Third Party Verification

Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban (SBM-U) has achieved its target of creating Urban India ODF. Urban areas of 35 states / UTs have become ODF. In all, 4,320 cities (out of 4,372) have declared themselves ODF, of which 4,167 cities have been certified through third party verification.This has been achieved by the construction of nearly 65.81 lakh Individual Household Toilets against Mission target of 59 lakhs and 5.89 lakh seats of community / public toilets against Mission target of 5.08 lakh seats under the Mission.
Solid Waste Management

• As on date, 96 per cent of wards have door to door collection, and approx. 60 per cent of the total waste generated is being processed.

• MoHUA also launched the Star rating protocol for Garbage free cities which is based on 12 parameters follows a SMART framework - Single metric, Measurable, Achievable, Rigorous verification mechanism and Targeted towards outcomes - and has been devised in a holistic manner including components such as cleanliness of drains & water bodies, plastic waste management, managing construction & demolition waste, etc. which are critical drivers for achieving garbage free cities. As on date, 4 cities (Indore, Ambikapur, Navi Mumbai and Mysuru) have been certified as 5-star cities, 57 cities have been certified as 3-star cities, and 4 cities have been certified as 1-star cities.

Plastic Waste Management:

The menace of plastic waste has now risen to alarming proportions. MOHUA, in line with the Plastics Management Rules, is working with other ministries and cities to recycle plastics and use them in road construction etc. MoHUA engaged with Cement Manufacturing Association to map 46 cement plants within 100 - 200 km from different ULBs, where plastic waste can be sent to CMA collection points and subsequently to cement plants for use as alternative fuel. MoHUA has also partnered with NHAI to identify 1,500 points where the plastic waste may be used for road construction. Additionally, cities have been asked to set up adequate Material Recovery Facilities (MRFs) to handle the segregation, processing and recycle of plastic waste.

• The Swachhata hi Seva campaign of 2019 has garnered participation from more than 7 crore urban residents, across 3,200 cities, from more than 1,06,000 events, and more than 7,700 MT of plastic waste has been collected.
Swachh Survekshan

• The Swachh Survekshan is an innovative survey conducted by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) under the Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban, to rank cities on various sanitation and cleanliness parameters. The survey has been successful in enthusing cities with a spirit of healthy competition towards the concept of 'swachhata'.

• In its first round in 2016, the 'Swachh Survekshan' was conducted among 73 cities with population of 10 lakh and above, and state / UT capitals of India. In 2017, the survey was conducted among 434 cities. Swachh Survekshan 2018 covered 4,203 ULBs and SS 2019 covered 4,237 cities. The SS 2019 was unique in that the service level assessment was completely online and paperless.

• Today, this annual cleanliness survey impacts 43 crore urban citizens and is the largest urban sanitation survey in the world.

• For Swachh Survekshan 2020 (SS 2020) which was launched on 13th August 2019, MoHUA has introduced the concept of 'continuous Survekshan' to ensure that the Mission outcomes are sustained through a system of continuous monitoring and verification. Swachh Survekshan 2020 is scheduled to begin from 4 January 2020 and will continue till 31 January 2020.

Capacity Building:

• MoHUA has been bringing out advisories on various components of SBM-U. Significant publications in 2019 include Advisory on Plastic Waste Management, Advisory on Emergency Response Sanitation Unit, Transforming the Urban Landscape: Best Practices in IEC and Behaviour Change and Transforming the Urban Landscape: Best Practices in ICT.

• MoHUA has organized several capacity buildings across the country to build ULB capacities on various components of SBM-U. In 2019, over 900 participants comprising ULB officials and elected represented have attended these workshops.

• Additionally, over 30 workshops have been conducted by MoHUA on SS 2020 with participation of 12,000 ULB officials. These workshops have also been attended by Ministers and Members of Parliament of various States.

Way Forward

• Going forward, Swachh Bharat Mission will focus on holistic and sustainable sanitation through faecal sludge management and 100 per cent wastewater treatment and reuse.

In the area of solid waste management, the Mission will focus on strengthening source segregation, collection, transportation and processing. Alongside, the Mission will also emphasize on construction and waste management and scientific landfilling and dumpsite remediation.
#Sukumar #Innokaiz #Gembrio #Taiyangxi #Unmei #Fuehrer
#Brainstormautomotive #Sukumarbalakrishnan

Lenskart raises US$ 275 million from SoftBank Vision Fund

Lenskart, an omnichannel eye-wear retailer, has raised US$ 275 million plus from SoftBank Vision Fund. The investment will be utilised to enhance Lenskart's tech capabilities and to strengthen its supply chain infrastructure. Lenskart is engaged in the manufacturing and supply of eyewear products at affordable prices.

"Lenskart's vision is to revolutionise the eye-wear industry. Technology and AI are the biggest enablers in what we do and want to achieve," said Peyush Bansal, Founder & CEO of Lenskart. He added that major part of this investment would go towards building next-generation technology and supply chain to deliver the next billion glasses with the highest quality at the best price.

Lenskart uses the technology and AI in every aspect of its operation as well as interacting with consumers on apps or in stores, for the product, retail footprint, pricing, supply chain, manufacturing and logistics to deliver seamless customer experience in consumer retail.

As Lenskart was founded in 2010 in India, currently having 500 plus stores across 100 plus cities in India.
#Sukumar #Innokaiz #Gembrio #Taiyangxi #Unmei #Fuehrer
#Brainstormautomotive #Sukumarbalakrishnan

STT GDC India inaugurates its 15th data centre in Bengaluru

STT Global Data Centres India Private Ltd (STT GDC India) inaugurated its 15th data centre in Bengaluru expanding its national network.

The third data centre is 18MW and is spread over 4,00,000 sq. ft., at Whitefield, Bengaluru. The centre is designed to meet the highest benchmark in green practices and is built from ground up, drawing on STT GDC India’s combined design, construction, engineering, and operations expertise.

It is built to provide to the modern-day high-density computing needs of its customers for mobility, e-commerce, IoT, cloud and big data.

Around Rs 600 crore (US$ 85.85 million) of investment is planned in phases into building the state-of-the-art, purpose-built data centre at approximately Rs 30 crore to Rs 45 crore (US$ 4.29 to 6.44 million) of investment per MW.

"Bengaluru is a hub for many start-ups as well as ITES, e-commerce, biotech and fintech entities. As the city's largest operational data centre, I'm excited to announce that STT Bengaluru DC-3 marks the first data centre to be inaugurated as part of our multi-megawatt capacity expansion across India. The new facility is also backed by our commitment to providing best-in-class data centre infrastructure for varied retail and wholesale clients" said Mr Sumit Mukhija, CEO at STT GDC India

With this latest expansion, the power capacity has been increased to over 90 MW of critical IT load across eight cities. The wide array of connectivity options consists of configuration alternatives, including shared rack space, individual racks and cage. STT Bengaluru DC-3 will offer customized solutions suiting according to ones need and multi-megawatt dedicated spaces serving to retail and wholesale customers.

STT Global Data Centres India Private Limited is a joint venture between ST Telemedia Global Data Centres and Tata Communications. This is a data centre service provider with one of the largest data centre footprints in the country. It provides service to over 1,000 customers including Fortune 500 companies and now operates three of the country's largest data centre facilities in Pune, Chennai and Bengaluru.
#Sukumar #Innokaiz #Gembrio #Taiyangxi #Unmei #Fuehrer
#Brainstormautomotive #Sukumarbalakrishnan

EChO Network launched to catalyze cross-disciplinary leadership in India; will train educators and students in interdisciplinary manner

EChO Network, a national program to provide a template for cross-disciplinary leadership in India with the specific focus of increasing research, knowledge, and awareness of Indian ecology and the environment was launched yesterday in New Delhi by Prof K. Vijay Raghavan, Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India.

Speaking at the launch programme, Prof Vijay Raghavan said India has recently embarked on a number of national-level efforts to promote ecological and environmental research on the subcontinent; however, there remains a lacuna of trained scientists with interdisciplinary skills and collaborative mindset. We need to train a new generation of educators and students who can identify and solve problems in an interdisciplinary manner and who can listen to our natural world and tackle real-world problems in medicine, agriculture, ecology, and technology and I am convinced this network will inspire an entirely new approach to Indian education and exploration necessary for the post-technological world said Prof Vijay Raghavan.

India faces unprecedented threats to its human environmental and ecosystems, solving which requires a confluence of India's strong technological expertise and knowledge of the natural world itself. EChO Network would develop a national network to catalyse a new generation of Indians who can synthesize interdisciplinary concepts and tackle real-world problems in medicine, agriculture, ecology, and technology. With no precedent for such a network anywhere in the world, EChO Network establishes a new platform to change how science is embedded in our modern society.

Through interactive sessions with citizens, industry, academia, and the government, the Network will identify gaps in knowledge regarding selected topics in human and environmental ecosystems. The program will then train postdoctoral leaders in research and outreach on these topics, while also incorporating current public and private efforts into a national network. It would then go on to establishing nation-wide awareness in these issues through public discourse and education for citizens, industry, and government with information exchange at all educational levels. Over time EChO Network intends to create an international distributed institute comprising individuals housed within industry, government, private, and academic sectors, combining their expertise and resources collectively to tackle large scale problems.

The initiative has drawn in partners from Government, industry and academia, with the Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Govt. of India steering the program under the guidance of Prof Shannon Olsson, Director, EChO Network. Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Hindustan Unilever Limited, RoundGlass, India Climate Collaborative, Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), and Centre for Cellular and Molecular Platforms (C-CAMP) are the founding partners of the EChO Network.

This is a mission of hope remarked Prof Olsson at the launch programme. He further said that throughout his career in India, he has met countless individuals working hard to make a positive difference for Indian ecosystems. The purpose of this Network he informed is to bring all those together to share knowledge and synergize efforts under the umbrella of science. In order to do this, we need leaders who are trained to communicate across different sectors of society, this is the goal of the EChO Network said Prof Olsson.
#Sukumar #Innokaiz #Gembrio #Taiynagxi #Unmei #Fuehrer
#Brainstormautomotive #Sukumarbalakrishnan

CLW Produces 300th Locomotive Of 2019-20 In Less Than 9 Months

Chittaranjan Locomotive Works (CLW) has turned out 300th locomotive of the FY 2019-20 on 21st December 2019 evening, in less than 9 months (216 working days) of current financial year.

The working days for production of 300th loco has reduced from 292 days in the year FY2017-18 to 249 days in FY2018-19 and further to 216 days in the current FY2019-20. Therefore, a reduction of 28 per cent since FY2017-18.

Shri Praveen Kumar Mishra, General Manager flagged off the 300th loco, WAG-9 HC (32692) from CLW on 21st Dec 2019 evening amidst the presence of senior officers and staff. He appreciated the efforts of all the dedicated team of officers and staff in production of 300th electric locomotive from CLW.

Shri Praveen Kumar Mishra also expressed hope that with this trend in production, CLW will be able to even surpass the target of this FY 2019-20 and will be all set for creating a new record. CLW produced 402 locomotives in 2018-19 and thus became the world's largest producer of locomotives.
#Innokaiz #Gembrio #Taiyangxi #Unmei #Fuehrer #Brainstormautomotive
#Sukumarbalakrishnan

Non-life insurers register 13 per cent rise in November premium to Rs 14,591 crore

According to the data from Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDAI), the non-life insurance companies witnessed a rise of 13.1 per cent in their collective premium in November to Rs 14,590.50 crore (US$ 20.09 billion).

Though, the business premium by these 34 non-life insurance firms stood at Rs 12,903.57 crore (US$ 1.85 billion) in the same month of the previous year.

The data showed that out of the total non-life insurers, the 25 general insurers witnessed rise of 11 per cent in their premium income at Rs 12,723.61 crore (US$ 1.82 billion) during the month, as against Rs 11,508.67 crore (US$ 1.65 billion) in the year-ago same period.

Seven standalone private sector health insurance companies registered their premium increasing by 29 per cent to Rs 1,167.66 crore (US$ 167.07 million), from Rs 903.65 crore (US$ 129.30 million) in November 2018.

The data showed that the two specialised state-owned insurers, Agricultural Insurance Company of India Ltd and ECGC Ltd, witnessed an increase of 42 per cent in the premium collection at Rs 699.22 crore (US$ 100 million) from Rs 491.25 crore (US$ 70.29 million) a year ago.

Cumulatively, the premium of all the non-life insurers during April-November were up by 15.57 per cent at Rs 1,26,048.45 crore (US$ 18.04 billion), as against Rs 1,09,068.12 crore (US$ 15.61 billion) a year ago.
#Sukumar #Innokaiz #Taiyangxi #Unmei #Fuehrer #Brainstormautomotive
#Sukumarbalakrishnan

Amid violent protests, PM Modi to review progress in govt's works today

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will review on Saturday the progress made by various ministries in the last six months after the BJP returned to power for the second consecutive term, government sources have said.

While brief presentations would be made by various ministries on various decisions taken by them, the focus would be on agriculture, rural development and the social sector.

Usually, the Council of Ministers meets after Cabinet meeting every month. But this time, the meeting is being held independently. The regular weekly Cabinet meeting will be held on December 24, the sources said.

In the past few weeks, the prime minister has reviewed progress made by various ministries in implementing the government's policies during cabinet meetings.

But Saturday's meeting assumes significance as it would be attended by ministers of state and ministers of state with independent charge.

The BJP-led NDA returned to power with a greater mandate in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. It completed six months in power in November.
#Sukumar #Innokaiz #Gembrio #Taiyangxi #Unmei #Fuehrer
#Brainstormautomotive #Sukumabalakrishnan

BSNL launches new recharge with 90 days plan validity and 5GB data benefit

BSNL has launched a new prepaid plan for its users. Called as the new Mithram Plus, this new prepaid recharge costs Rs 109 and offers 90 days of account validity. The prepaid plan is available only in Kerala circle only.

Just like the Vodafone Idea, Jio and Airtel, the new BSNL Mithram Plus is also one of those plans that may not offer much of the benefits in terms of data or calling but come with a good amount of validity which is very important.
The telecom companies have made it mandatory to maintain a minimum balance to avoid account deactivation. In this case, BSNL's Mithram Plus plan sounds like a decent deal since it offers account validity of 90 days from the date of recharge. You will face service interruption if you fail to recharge your number after these 90 days. In simple words, you can say that this plan is a good option to keep your account active.

Coming to the benefits that come with the new MIthram Plus plan, it offers unlimited voice calls to any network in India including Mumbai and Delhi circles with a capping of 250 minutes per day. There's also 5GB of data benefit included in the plan. These benefits will expire after 20 days.

BSNL revises validity of Rs 118, Rs 187, Rs 349 and Rs 399 prepaid plans

BSNL recently also revised the validity of its four prepaid plans - Rs 118, Rs 187, Rs 349 and Rs 399. It has cut down on the validity of these four plans while the rest of the benefits remain unchanged.
The Rs 118 BSNL prepaid plan that previously came with 28 days of validity now comes with 21 days of validity. It offers unlimited calls, 0.5 GB data per day, and 100 SMS per day.

The Rs 187 prepaid plan now comes with 24 days of validity instead of 26 days. It offers unlimited calls, 3 GB data per day, and 100 SMS per day.

The validity of Rs 349 prepaid recharge has been reduced from 64 days to 56 days. The benefits under the plan remain the same- unlimited calls, 2 GB per day data, and 100 SMS per day.

Last but not least is the Rs 399 recharge plan that now comes with 65 days of validity instead of 72 days. The benefits are- unlimited calls, 2 GB per day data, and 100 SMS per day.
#Sukumar #Innokaiz #Gembrio #Taiyangxi #Unmei #Fuehrer #Brainstormautomotive #Sukumarbalakrishnan

India rejects Malaysia PM's remarks over Citizenship Act

India on Friday rejected the comments made by Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad on the Citizenship Amendment Act as "factually inaccurate".

"According to media reports, the Prime Minister of Malaysia has yet again remarked on a matter that is entirely internal to India. The Citizenship Amendment Act provides for citizenship through naturalisation to be fast-tracked for non-citizens who are persecuted minorities from three countries," a statement issued by the Ministry of External Affairs said.

"The Act does not impact in any manner on the status of any citizen of India, or deprive any Indian of any faith of her or his citizenship," the statement said.

The Malaysian Prime Minister had criticised India's new citizenship law while speaking on the sidelines of the Kuala Lumpur Summit 2019 on Friday. He said, "I am sorry to see that India, which claims to be a secular state now is taking action to deprive some Muslims of their citizenship."

India has not taken kindly to these statements and asked Malaysia to "refrain" from commenting on India's "internal" matters.

"...the Prime Minister of Malaysia's comment is factually inaccurate. We call upon Malaysia to refrain from commenting on internal developments in India, especially without a right understanding of the facts," the MEA statement said.

Mahathir Mohamad, who is known to be inclined towards Pakistan, has in the past also raised the issue of Kashmir and expressed concerns regarding the situation in the Valley.

Questioning the recent amendment in India's citizenship laws, Mahathir questioned the "necessity" of the changes. "People are dying because of this law. Why is there a necessity to do this when all the while, for 70 years, they have lived together as citizens without any problem?" he asked.

ADVERTISEMENT

India has been engaging the international community on the recent developments in India and all the missions have been briefed to reach out to the respective foreign ministries to apprise the countries of the reason behind Modi administration's policies.
#Sukumar #Innokaiz #Gembrio #Taiyangxi #Unmei #Fuehrer
#Brainstormautomotive #Sukumarbalakrishnan

Panacea Biotec bags orders worth US$ 24 million from UN agencies

Panacea Biotec has bagged orders worth Rs 170 crore (US$ 24.32 million) from UN agencies, including UNICEF, for the supply of Pentavalent vaccine.

The vaccine has a role in providing protection against five deadly diseases, including diphtheria, tetanus and hepatitis B to children.

"Panacea Biotec... has received awards worth US$ 24.32 million from U N agencies (UNICEF and PAHO) for supply of its Easy five-TT, a fully liquid WHO prequalified wP-based Pentavalent vaccine (DTwPHepB-Hib)," according to the company filing to BSE.

This award of order from UNICEF is for the calendar year 2020 and for three calendar years that include 2020 to 2022 from PAHO.

These pediatric vaccination have a major role in particular to reach the target set by United Nation under Sustainable Development Goals. The goal is to reduce under-five mortality rate to less than 25 per 1,000 live births.

"Pentavalent vaccine protects children against five deadly diseases; Diphtheria, Tetanus, Pertussis, Hepatitis B and invasive infections caused by Haemophilus Influenza Type b - becoming the foundation of paediatric immunisation programs across the world," the company said.
#Sukumar #Innokaiz #Gembrio #Taiyangxi #Unmei #Brainstormautomotive
#Fuehrer #Sukumarbalakrishnan