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International Yoga day: June 21

The 4th International Yoga day was celebrated on June 21, 2018 across the world to raise awareness worldwide of the many benefits of practicing yoga. The theme this year was “Yoga for Peace”. The day’s celebration in India were led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Dehradun, Uttarakhand. He was joined by joined thousands of volunteers, who performed Yoga asanas in the lawns of Forest Research Institute (FRI), Dehradun.

International Yoga Day (IYD)

The idea of celebrating the International Yoga Day was pitched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in September 2014. Later in December 2014, UNGA unanimously (endorsed by record 175 member states) adopted India-led resolution (69/131) to observe 21st June as International Day of Yoga.

This resolution was adopted under agenda of UN’s ‘Global Health and Foreign Policy’. The date 21st June was selected because it represents one of the two solstices and is the longest day in Northern Hemisphere (summer solstice) which has special significance in many parts of the world. The first International Yoga Day (IYD) was celebrated across the world on 21 June 2015.

Yoga

Yoga is an ancient physical, mental and spiritual practice that originated in India. The word yoga derives from Sanskrit which means to join or to unite, symbolizing union of body and consciousness. Yoga if it is practiced by all on daily basis in the early morning has numerous health benefits. The benefits of Yoga include increased muscle strength and tone, increased flexibility, improved respiration, energy and vitality. It also helps to maintain balanced metabolism, reduces weight, improves cardio and circulatory health and improves athletic performance. It was inscribed in the representative list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in December 2016.

June 20: World Refugee Day

The World Refugee Day is observed every year June 20 to raise awareness of the situation of refugees throughout the world. Observance of this day seeks to draw attention to the plight of refugees and also to celebrate their courage and resilience and renew commitment to solve refugee problems. The theme for World Refugee Day 2018 is “Now More Than Ever, We Need to Stand with Refugees.”

Refugees

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United Nations 1951 Refugee Convention, defines refugees as those who have fled their country owing to well-founded fear of persecution because of their race, religion, nationality, membership in particular social group or political opinion. UN has revealed that record high of 68.5 million individuals have now been displaced worldwide due to war, poverty, persecution and other events.

Key Facts

On this day, United Nations Refugee Agency (UNRA) also known as United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) hosts various events and announces theme for its campaign. With this, UNRA seeks to draw public’s attention to the millions of refugees and internally displaced persons worldwide who have fled their homes forcefully due to war, conflict and persecution.

Background

The World Refugee Day was proclaimed by United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) h by passing Resolution 55/76 on 4 December 2000. The resolution was passed to mark 50th anniversary of UN Refugee Convention, 1951. Since then it is observed annually with different themes. Prior to passing of this resolution in 2000, African Refugee Day was formally celebrated on 20 June in several countries especially by Organization of African Unity (OAU) member states. The theme for year 2017 was “Embracing Refugees to Celebrate our Common Humanity”.

Government launches National Digital Library of India

The Union Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) launched National Digital Library of India (NDLI) on the occasion of National Reading Day (observed on June 17) in New Delhi. NDLI’s objective is to make digital educational resources available to all citizens of the country to empower, inspire and encourage learning.

National Digital Library of India (NDLI)

NDLI is project of Ministry of HRD under the aegis of National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology (NMEICT) to develop a framework of virtual repository of learning resources with a single-window search facility.

NDLI has been developed by Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur. It is single window platform that collects and collates metadata from premier learning institutions in India and abroad, as well as other relevant sources. It is open to all at free of cost.



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It is digital repository 17 million-plus items containing textbooks, articles, videos, audio books, lectures, simulations, fiction and all other kinds of learning media) in 200-plus languages from more than 170 institutions.

It has been designed to hold content of any language and provides learning and research interface support for leading Indian languages. It is arranged to provide support for all academic levels including researchers and life-long learners from all disciplines and in all popular form of access devices and also to differently-abled learners.

To give confidence to wind industry, Government declares national targets for off-shore wind power

Medium term target of 5 GW by 2022 and long term target of 30 GW by 2030 declared

Offshore wind power to add a new element to the already existing basket of renewable energy for the country

The Ministry of New & Renewable Energy recently invited Expressions of Interest (EoI) for the first 1 GW offshore wind project in India, which has evoked keen response from the industry both global and Indian. Now to give confidence to the wind industry, the Ministry has declared medium and long term target for off-shore wind power capacity additions, which are 5 GW by 2022 and 30 GW by 2030. While this may look moderate in comparison to India’s on-shore wind target of 60 GW and its achievement of 34 GW and solar target of 100 GW by 2022, this would still be challenging considering the difficulties in installing large wind power turbines in open seas. It may be mentioned that offshore wind turbines are of much larger dimensions and capacities than onshore turbines.

Offshore wind power would add a new element to the already existing basket of renewable energy for the country.

The Ministry of New & Renewable Energy had notified National Off-Shore Wind Policy in October 2015 to realize the offshore wind power potential in the country. Preliminary studies have indicated good wind potential for off-shore wind power both in southern tip of Indian peninsula and west coast. Two regions where preliminary studies are conducted are off coast of Gujarat and that of Tamil Nadu. For precise wind quality measurements one LiDAR has been installed near Gujarat coast which is generating data about quality of off-shore wind since November, 2017. Encouraged by quality of off-shore wind, a private sector player has also installed LiDAR in Gulf of Kutch in Gujarat for offshore wind resource measurements. Plans are afoot to install more of such equipment in Tamil Nadu and Gujarat. Surveys to understand the oceanographic and sea bed condition within identified zones off the coast of Gujarat and Tamil Nadu have been planned. Globally there has been installation of about 17 to 18 GW of off-shore wind power led by countries such as



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UK, Germany, Denmark, Netherlands & China. Recent years have witnessed fall in off-shore wind tariff in some of these markets.

Country's first river interlinking project caught in U.P.-M.P. tussle

Land acquisition, water sharing issues impede Ken Betwa project

Disagreements over water-sharing and difficulty in acquiring non-forest land impede the ₹18,000-crore Ken Betwa river interlink project.

The scheme, which involves deforesting a portion of the Panna Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh, was accorded clearance by the National Wildlife Board on the condition that the land lost would be made good by acquiring contiguous, revenue land. This is to ensure that wildlife corridors in the region aren’t hit. “The M.P. government has said that they are facing major difficulties over this,” said a senior person in the Water Ministry involved with the project.

Unlikely this year

Another hurdle is a dispute over how Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh — the two beneficiaries — will share water in the Rabi season.

These “major” issues made it quite unlikely that the project will get under way this year.

A person familiar with the deliberations told The Hindu, “New points of differences between the two States are constantly being raked up…there are still many things to be ironed out before the project can be sent for the [Union] Cabinet’s approval.”

Conceived as a two-part project, this is the country's first river interlinking project. It is perceived as a model plan for similar interstate river transfer missions.



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The phase 1 involves building a 77 m-tall and a 2 km-wide dam, the Dhaudhan dam, and a 230 km canal to transfer extra water from the Ken river for irrigating 3.64 lakh hectares in the Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.

Originally, this phase envisaged irrigating 6,35,661 ha (hectares) annually (3,69,881 ha in M.P. and 2,65,780 ha in U.P.). In addition, the project was to provide 49 million cubic metres (MCM) of water for en route drinking water supply.

No longer valid

While there’s a 2005 agreement between the two States on how water would be shared, Madhya Pradesh said last year that these assumptions were no longer valid and the only way to meet increased water requirements would be to include certain local water management projects — the Kotha barrage, Lower Orr and Bina complex that were envisaged in the second phase of the project — in the first phase.

In theory, this could mean a completely fresh environmental appraisal. The Central Water Commission is yet to officially take a call, though government sources say the Centre is agreeable to the change. However, new demands by Madhya Pradesh for more water during the Rabi season are yet to be negotiated.



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Haryana 7 Star Rainbow Scheme | इंद्रधनुष योजना हरि�याणा

Haryana 7 Star Rainbow Scheme – The Haryana Government has launched a new scheme for the development of the villages of the state. The name of this scheme is Haryana 7 Star Rainbow Scheme. The main motive of the state government behind launching this scheme is to improvise the working of Gram Panchayats in Haryana. The Development & Panchayats Deptt has planned for Grading / Ranking the Gram Panchayats. With a view to scale up the coverage of the ranking exercise and encourage GPs to actively implement the schemes in a timely and innovative manner, Development &Panchayats department proposes to conduct an Inter-district verification to award star rating amongst 6203 GPs (Gram Panchayats) based on specific parameters.

Haryana 7 Star Rainbow Scheme

Best performing selected Gram Panchayats from each district will be identified in a systematic manner, as given below, and will be Awarded and Incentivized. Such GPs will be recognized as “Indradhanush Gram Panchayats” who scores maximum in all parameters. The nominations for awards will be invited online as per the timelines fixed by Department of Development & Panchayats, Haryana.

Haryana 7 Star Rainbow Scheme – 7 Categories

Star GP Status will be given on the basis of performance on below mentioned Seven categories

1. Male/ Female Sex Ratio (equal or more)2. Education (Dropouts) (Zero dropouts or Minimum dropouts)3. Hygiene /Serenity4. Peace & Harmony (No litigation or Minimum litigation)5. Environment Preservation6. Good Governance7. Social Participation



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The main objective of instituting this award is to strengthen the institution of GPs and to highlight it as an institution of decision making and making their Gram Panchayat proud. This includes the economic & social development of Gram Panchayat in a transparent way through participative democracy offering equal opportunity to all citizens including the poor, women & other marginalized sections of society.

India Smart Cities Award 2018: Surat Smart City selected for City Award for implementation of projects

Surat smart city from Gujarat was selected for ‘City Award’ for showing great momentum in implementation of projects under India Smart Cities Awards 2018 especially in categories of urban environment, transport and mobility and sustainable integrated development. Total nine awards in three categories including Innovative Idea Award, Project Award, and City Award were announced by Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs under India Smart Cities Awards 2018.



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Other category winners

Innovative Idea award: Bhopal and Ahmedabad were jointly honoured for Integrated Command and Control Centre (ICCC) and Safe and Secure Ahmedabad (SASA) Project, respectively. The award was given to project and idea particularly remarkable for its innovative, bottom-up and transformative approach towards achievement of sustainable integrated development.

Project awards: They were given to most innovative and successful projects in seven categories that have been completed by April 1, 2018. Projects selected under it are

1. Governance category: PMC Care from Pune.2. Built Environment category: Smart Place Making from Pune.3. Social Aspects category: Smart Class rooms from NDMC and Jabalpur, Smart

Campus from Visakhapatnam, Lighthouse from Pune.4. Culture and Economy category: B Nest Incubation Centre from Bhopal and

Conservation of Rajasthan School of Arts from Jaipur.5. Urban environment category: Public Bike Sharing from Pune, Bhopal, Coimbatore

and Waste to Energy Plant in Jabalpur.6. Transport and Mobility category: Integrated Transit Management System (TMS)

from Ahmedabad and Surat.7. Water and Sanitation category: Smart Water Management through SCADA from

Ahmedabad.

India Smart Cities Award

The award was launched in June 2017 with an objective to reward cities, projects and innovative ideas, promoting sustainable development in cities. The award is given in 3 categories of viz. Innovative Idea Award, City Award and Project Award. Only selected Smart Cities are eligible participants for the award. Respective ULBs or Smart City SPVs need to submit proposals for this award.

Evaluation

The proposals submitted by ULBs/ Smart City SPVs are evaluated by technical committee of international, multilateral experts from UN Habitat, Asian Development Bank (ADB) and National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA) based on Innovation, Impact, and Replicability or Scalability. The City Award was decided based on cities’ performance on their awards score and on weekly Ranking score. Equal weighting is given to both.

NITI Aayog sees India headed for an aqua-calypse



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India is suffering the worst water crisis in its history and millions of lives and livelihoods are under threat, according to the composite water management index released by Niti Aayog. Reflecting on the severity of the issue, the Niti Aayog said, “Currently, 600 million Indians face high to extreme water stress and about two lakh people die every year due to inadequate access to safe water. The crisis is only going to get worse. By 2030, the country’s water demand is projected to be twice the available supply, implying severe water scarcity for hundreds of millions of people and an eventual 6 per cent loss in the country’s GDP.”

“Water management is the country’s largest problem at hand. This report has reflected that those states which managed water properly have shown a higher agricultural growth rate. Madhya Pradesh has a 22-23 per cent growth rate, while Gujarat has an 18 per cent growth rate. This means that rural and agricultural economies have developed better, lessening migration and lowering the stress on urban infrastructure.”

The report on the state-wise performance on parameters of water management ranks Gujarat at number one in reference year 2016-2017, followed by Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra. The worst performing states are Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Jharkhand.



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According to the report of the National Commission for Integrated Water Resource Development of MoWR, the water requirement by 2050 in a high-use scenario is likely to be a milder 1,180 BCM, whereas the present-day availability is 695 BCM. The total availability of water possible in the country is still lower than this projected demand, at 1,137 BCM. “There is an imminent need to deepen our understanding of our water resources and usage and put in place interventions that make our water use efficient and sustainable,” the Niti Aayog said.

In terms of incremental change in index (over 2015-16 level), Rajasthan holds number one position in general states and Tripura ranks first amongst the North-Eastern and Himalayan states. The Aayog has proposed to publish these ranks on an annual basis in future, an official statement said.

The index comprises nine broad sectors with 28 different indicators, covering various aspects of ground water, restoration of water bodies, irrigation, farm practices, drinking water, policy and governance. For the purposes of analysis, the reporting states were divided into two special groups – ‘North-Eastern and Himalayan states’ and ‘Other States’, to account for the different hydrological conditions across these groups.

Using seven rivers, three interlinking projects to build a national water grid

Union Cabinet gets an update on progress of special committee. What is this panel, and which rivers does its latest report cover?

IT IS an idea that has been in circulation for nearly four decades: can India build from scratch a national water grid, which will help transfer water from water-rich to water-deficit regions? This has led to proposals for water transfer from one river basin to another. The Special Committee for Inter-Linking of Rivers has submitted its progress report for the work done from July 2016 to March 2018, and the Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister was updated on the report recently. A look at what interlinking seeks to achieve, and what was covered in the latest report:

The big picture

The Inter-Linking of Rivers programme aims to connect various surplus rivers with deficient rivers. The idea is to divert excess water from surplus regions to deficient regions to help improve irrigation, increase water for drinking and industrial use, and mitigate drought and floods to an extent.

The special committee was set up following a Supreme Court direction on a 2012 writ petition on ‘Networking of Rivers’. The SC directed the Centre to set up a special committee that would then constitute sub-committees. It directed the committee to submit



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a bi-annual report to the Cabinet on status and progress, and directed the Cabinet to take appropriate decisions.

The status reports are meant to be in accordance with the National Perspective Plan. This plan was formulated in 1980 by the Ministry of Irrigation (now Water Resources) to look into inter-basin transfers. The plan comprises two components: peninsular rivers development and Himalayan rivers development.

India also has a National Water Development Agency (NWDA), which was set up in 1982, to conduct surveys and see how feasible proposals for interlinking river projects are.

Three reports before Cabinet



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The status report of three priority links was shared with the Cabinet. These were Ken-Betwa, Damanganga-Pinjal and Par-Tapi-Narmada. The Water Resources Ministry had drawn up detailed project reports for all three projects in 2015. The committee report also goes into the status of other Himalayan and peninsular links identified under the National Perspective Plan.

KEN-BATWA: The project aims to link the rivers Ken (in the Bundelkhand region) and Betwa, both flowing through Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. It proposes to “divert the surplus waters of river Ken through the Ken-Betwa link canal to river Betwa for meeting water requirements in the water-deficit Betwa basin”. Dams will be built across the Ken for storing and transferring water through the link canal.

According to the initial DPR, it will provide annual irrigation benefits of 6.35 lakh hectares (Phase I) in both states and a further 0.99 lakh hectares (Phase II) in MP. Initial cost estimates were Rs 18,000 crore for the first phase and Rs 8,000 crore for the second; these have escalated with the Ministry planning to integrate both phases upon MP’s request.

DAMANGANGA-PINJAL: The project aims to divert excess water from rivers in western India to meet the domestic and industrial water requirements of Greater Mumbai. It proposes to move available water at the proposed Bhugad reservoir across the Damanganga and at the proposed Khargihill reservoir across the Vagh, a tributary of the Damanganga. These two reservoirs, proposed by the NWDA, will be linked to the Pinjal reservoir (proposed by Maharashtra) through pressure tunnels.

The detailed project report was completed in March 2014 and submitted to the governments of Maharashtra and Gujarat. It suggested Greater Mumbai region would benefit by 895 million cubic metres water.

PAR-TAPI-NARMADA: The project proposes to transfer water from the Western Ghats to water-deficit regions of Saurashtra and Kutch via seven reservoirs proposed in northern Maharashtra and southern Gujarat. It is an attempt to save water at the Sardar Sarovar project by using feeder canals to service a part of the command area of the dam, officials say.

The link envisages construction of these seven dams, three diversion weirs, two tunnels (5 km & 0.5 km), a 395-km canal (205 km in the Par-Tapi stretch including the length of feeder canals, and 190 km in Tapi-Narmada), 6 power houses and a number of cross-drainage works, documents state.

Question marks

Many experts and activists have questioned the idea of inter-basin transfer, for various reasons. The ecology of every river being unique, experts have stressed that letting the waters of two rivers mix may affect biodiversity. Because the programme proposes the



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construction of a massive network of canals and dams, it would lead to large-scale displacement of people and changes in agricultural patterns, and affect livelihoods.

Experts have also objected to interlinking for financial reasons. In 2001, the total cost for linking the Himalayan and peninsular rivers was estimated at Rs 5,60,000 crore, excluding the costs of relief and rehabilitation, and other expenses such as measures to deal with submergence in some areas. Two years ago, a committee of the Ministry suggested that this cost was likely to be substantially higher now and the cost-benefit ratio might no longer be favourable.

Another objection raised is that rainfall patterns are changing due to climate change, so the basins now supposed to be surplus, might cease to be so in a few years.

Google for flood forecasting

Context: Central Water Commission (CWC), India’s apex technical organization in the field of Water Resources, has entered into a Collaboration Agreement with Google for flood forecasting. This initiative is likely to help crisis management agencies to deal extreme hydrological events in a better manner.

Under this Agreement:

CWC and Google will share technical expertise in the fields of artificial intelligence, machine learning, geospatial mapping and analysis of hydrological observation data to collaborate on:

Improving flood prediction systems, which will help provide location-targeted, actionable flood warnings.

High priority research project utilizing Google Earth Engine to help visualize and improve flood management.

A cultural project to build online exhibitions on the Rivers of India.

Benefits of the agreement:

The collaborative arrangement is likely to result in saving of crore of rupees which otherwise would have to be spent by the government on acquiring high resolution DEM, high end computational resources and developing dissemination platforms widely used by the masses.



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This would enable the Government as well as disaster management organisations to identify well in advance the locations and population, which are at risk from floods and require warnings and information.

This collaborative initiative is expected to be a milestone in flood management and in mitigating the flood losses.

About Central Water Commission:

Central Water Commission is a premier Technical Organization of India in the field of Water Resources and is presently functioning as an attached office of the Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, Government of India.

The Commission is entrusted with the general responsibilities of initiating, coordinating and furthering in consultation of the State Governments concerned, schemes for control, conservation and utilization of water resources throughout the country, for purpose of Flood Control, Irrigation, Navigation, Drinking Water Supply and Water Power Development. It also undertakes the investigations, construction and execution of any such schemes as required.


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