Current Affairs for IAS Exams – 13 September 2015

:: National ::

Smart Cities rank low in swachh bharat ranking

Many cities selected for new urban initiatives under the Centre’s flagship programmes are found to be wanting on the sanitation front and are low on swachh bharat ranking causing concern for the government.
With the states on course of preparation of city level plans under the flagship new urban initiatives of Smart City Mission, Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) and Heritage City Development and Augmentation Yojana (HRIDAY), the common underlying concern is ensuring sanitation under all these schemes.
Concern over cleanliness in urban areas is highlighted by the fact that only 3 of the 98 cities selected so far under Smart City Mission figure among the top 10 clean cities and most of the 12 HRIDAY cities ranked very low in Swachh Bharat Rankings, according to the data prepared by the Urban Development Ministry for 476 Class-1 cities of the country.
UD Ministry is currently conducting workshops for states and urban local bodies for their understanding of various aspects of preparation of city level smart city plans.
Of the 98 cities identified, 88 of them were given swachh bharat rankings. Of these, only 3 cities Kochi, Tiruchirapally and Navi Mumbai are among the top 10 clean cities in the country.
While 29 of these 98 figured among the top 100 cities, in a matter of concern, 38 smart city nominees were ranked beyond 200, including 20 between swachh bharat rankings of 301-476.
Of the 12 HRIDAY Cities, 8 were given swachh bharat rankings. Of these, only Warangal (Andhra Pradesh) got a good swachh bharat rank of 33 while the remaining 7 were ranked between 290 (Kanchipuram) and 430 (Amritsar). Swachh Bharat Ranking of other HRIDAY cities, which are of cultural and tourism importance are Mathura (299), Gaya (334), Puri (398) and Varanasi (418).
Accordingly, sanitation has been made an integral component of all new schemes like Smart City Mission, AMRUT and HRIDAY besides launching Swachh Bharat Mission.”
He said under AMRUT, focus is on ensuring clean water supply and sewerage connection to all urban households besides storm water drains while under Smart City Mission the emphasis is on decentralized water and solid waste management and application of smart solutions.
Under Swachh Bharat Mission, the principal objective is to eliminate open defecation and 100 per cent door-to-door collection, transportation and scientific disposal of municipal solid waste. Convergence of these schemes in implementation should help in achieving intended results including sanitation.”
He also said that the purpose of setting up a meeting of about 100 Swachh Bharat Ambassadors with President Pranab Mukherjee on Thursday was to further galvanise awareness generation activities about cleanliness.
Contrary to the popular adage that small is beautiful, it turned out that small cities are not necessarily the clean cities. Of the 482 towns and cities with a population of above one lakh each identified as AMRUT cities, 245 have a population between one and two lakh each.
Of these, only 3 cities Hassan (Karnataka), Gangtok (Sikkim) and Halisahar (West Bengal) figured among the top 10 clean cities and 40 among the top 100 clean cities.
106 of these 245 cities were ranked low between 300 and 476.
Central Government has provisioned central assistance of Rs 48,000 cr for Smart City Mission, Rs 50,000 cr for AMRUT for the next five years and Rs 500 cr for HRIDAY during 2015- 17.
Under Smart City Mission, Rs 100 cr central assistance will be provided to each of the 100 selected cities per year with states and urban local bodies providing matching funds.
Sanitation projects including solid waste management have to be taken up with resources from other sources including borrowings and PPP.
Under AMRUT, Centre will provide 50 per cent of the project cost for universal coverage of water connections and sewerage networks for cities with population of up to 10 lakhs with states requiring to meet at least 20 per cent of project cost and mobilizing the rest from the resources of urban local bodies and other sources. Central assistance will be 30 per cent for cities with population of more than 10 lakhs each.
Swachh Bharat Mission has been launched in urban areas last year at an estimated cost of Rs 66,009 cr out of which central share is Rs 14,623 cr. Under this Mission, Centre will provide an assistance of Rs 4,000 each for construction of household toilets, 4 per cent of cost as Viability Gap Funding for construction of community toilets and 20 per cent of cost as Viability Gap Funding for solid waste management projects.
Physical targets under Swachh Bharat Mission in urban areas include-construction of 1.04 crore individual household toilets, over 5 lakh community and public toilets and assisting 30 crore urban people with solid waste management services. 100 per cent door-to-door collection of solid waste, its transportation and scientific disposal in 83,000 urban wards by 2019 are envisaged under the Mission.

:: Business ::

Government developing framework for repowering wind farms: Piyush Goyal

With a view to ensure better capacity utilisation of wind energy projects, the Union Power Ministry is developing a framework for repowering wind farms from 200-300 watt units to 2-5 MW that are available in the market, Minister for Power, Coal, and New and Renewable Energy, Piyush Goyal said at an Assocham event held in New Delhi on Friday night.

Discom resolution

Talking about the discom resolution, Mr. Goyal said, “We are not only ceased of it but we are working relentlessly on a daily basis to fine tune and refine our proposals on that without giving any subsidy again or any grant/additional money (to the States).”
The Minister also said that government plans to bring down the cost of each LED bulb to Rs.44 from a level of Rs.74 through competitive bidding.

Hydel power sector

Talking about the slow progress of hydel power sector, Mr. Goyal said at the event that he had been able to get the Rs.9,000 crore worth Teesta power project back on line and with work expected to start soon it is likely to come on stream in a year’s time.
He also asked the industry associations to work in the national interest and not to become postman for scamsters or those following bad business practices.

Renewable energy sector

Talking about the poor progress of renewable energy sector in India, Mr. Goyal said, “Effectively, what I inherited was a situation where the industry had almost given up hope, you had anti-dumping looming large on solar industry, wind industry was crumbling in the back of withdrawal of certain fiscal benefits, bagasse based plants were almost dead or sick, small hydel was already over.”

:: Science & Technology ::

Cell-free protein manufacturing platform a game changer

The human body has a novel way of turning its proteins on and off to alter their function and activity in cells called phosphorylation -- the reversible attachment of phosphate groups to proteins.
Using a special strain of E coli bacteria, the researchers built a cell-free protein synthesis platform technology that can manufacture large quantities of these human phosphoproteins for scientific study.
This will enable scientists to learn more about the function and structure of phosphoproteins and identify which ones are involved in disease.
Such knowledge could pave the way for new drugs for a myriad of diseases, including cancer.
Trouble in the phosphorylation process can be a hallmark of disease, such as cancer, inflammation and Alzheimer's disease.
The human proteome (the entire set of expressed proteins) is estimated to be phosphorylated at more than 100,000 unique sites, making study of phosphorylated proteins and their role in disease a daunting task.
Along with Yale University researchers, Jewett combined state-of-the-art genome engineering tools and engineered biological "parts" into a "plug-and-play" protein expression platform that is cell-free.
Cell-free systems activate complex biological systems without using living intact cells.

:: Sports ::

Shastri retained as team director till 2016

Ravi Shastri was on Sunday retained as the team director of the Indian cricket team till the 2016 T20 World Cup at home, based on the recommendations of the BCCI advisory committee.
Shastri, who was appointed team director in August 2014, has been given another seven-month extension till the completion of the World T20 in April. The sixth edition of the tournament is scheduled to be held in India from March 11 to April 3.
The former Indian all-rounder took over the job after the England Test loss last year. The cricketer-turned-commentator then saw the team win the ODI series in England.
His two biggest achievements as team director are India's semi-final finish in the 50-over World Cup in Australia and New Zealand along with Virat Kohli's Test side winning an away Test series against Sri Lanka after 22 years.
Acknowledging the performance of the Indian cricket team and the efforts of the coaching staff in recent times, the advisory committee comprising Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman endorsed the extension of their tenure.
Along with Shastri, the committee also approved the extension of the assistant coaches till the T20 showpiece event next year. Sanjay Bangar stays on as the assistant coach (batting), Bharat Arun remains as bowling consultant and R Sridhar as the fielding coach.