NITI Aayog, Tourism - GS question based on India Year Book

ANSWER: Only 1 and 2

Explanation:
5 Circuits are identified initially – North-East Circuit, Buddhist Circuit, Coastal Circuit, Himalayan Circuit and Krishna Circuit. 3 projects one each in North-East, Buddhist and Coastal Circuits are sanctioned in 2014-15. The Odisha Government has sought inclusion of Odisha’s ‘Diamond Triangle’ of Buddhist sites (Ratnagiri, Udayagiri, and Lalitagiri) in the SWADESH DARSHAN Scheme. Tourism Ministry has already identified Bodh Gaya, Rajgir and Vaishali in Bihar and Kapilavastu, Sarnath, Sravasti and Kushinagar in Uttar Pradesh under the Buddhist circuit of Swadesh Darshan. Even though the Diamond Triangle in Odisha has immense potential to draw domestic and international travellers, the Union Ministry is yet to shift its focus towards it due to lack of tourist infrastructure at these sites. Funds from Swadesh Darshan can help in developing tourism amenities at these sites.

ANSWER: Spirit of India Run

Explanation:
The Ministry of Tourism and the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India along with State Tourism departments of the States of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Goa, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, Jammu & Kashmir and Union Territory of Chandigarh are supporting ‘Spirit of India Run’ by Mr. Pat Farmer, an ultra-Marathon Runner from Australia. Mr. Pat Farmer will run over 4000 km in 60 days starting from Kanyakumari and finishing in Kashmir. He will initiate his run on January 26th, 2016 celebrating India's Republic Day and Australia Day. Mr. Farmer is a multiple world record holder for endurance running and has run from the North Pole to the South Pole. Mr. Farmer’s ‘Spirit of India Run’ is aimed at cementing relations between India and Australia; encourage tourism and personal relationships with a view to create awareness of India as a ‘Must Experience’ destination for travelers from Australia; and support causes and charity which in the current endeavor is to raise funds for education of girl child. Mr. Pat Farmer will run on an average 70-80 Km., daily through the states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Goa, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab and Jammu & Kashmir and cover a distance of 4600 km.

ANSWER: Atal Tinkering Lab's Community Day

Explanation:
NITI Aayog's Atal Innovation Mission will launch the Atal Tinkering Lab's Community Day in the national capital tomorrow on Friday, 15th December, 2017.

The day will mark the Community Drive Initiative in which 25 young Mentors will engage with more than 200 students who are not enrolled in the formal education system.

CEO NITI Aayog, Mr. Amitabh Kant will launch the initiative in which these mentors will visit four locations in New Delhi to conduct brief sessions with children from various NGOs, on how innovations can help resolve the problems in the communities.

ATL: Know More

• The Atal Tinkering Lab Community Drive Initiative is aimed at maximizing the impact of Atal Tinkering Labs by extending innovation to children in the community who do not have access to formal educational institutions.
• The purpose of this initiative is to provide these children with the same educational tools as the students in Atal Tinkering Labs to enable them to become problem solvers.
• The NGOs participating in these interactions include organizations working with disabled children, street and working children, and girls from the weaker sections of society.

ANSWER: Amitabh Kant

Explanation:
The Union Government has constituted high-level committee headed by NITI Aayog Chief Executive Amitabh Kant to address problem of Non-performing assets (NPAs) or stressed assets in India's power sector.

It comprises secretaries in the ministries of power, coal and department of financial services as it members.

The Government is also planning to investigate whether private developers have inflated project costs to show higher debt.

NPAs: Know More

• According to second volume of Economic Survey 2016-17 released in August 2017, NPAs in power generation accounted for around 5.9% of the banking sector's total outstanding advances of Rs. 4.73 trillion.
• Tackling issues that afflict so-called stranded power assets will provide much-needed relief for Indian banks weighed down by bad loans.
• Besides, weak financial health of state-owned power distribution companies (discoms) is also hampering process of signing long-term power purchase agreements (PPAs) through competitive bidding.
• So far, a total of 34 coal-fuelled power projects, with an estimated debt of Rs. 1.77 trillion were reviewed by government after being identified by department of financial services.
• Issues faced by these projects include paucity of funds, lack of PPAs and absence of fuel security.

ANSWER: Act East Policy

Explanation:
The 6^th International Tourism Mart (ITM) 2017 was held in Guwahati, Assam. It was inaugurated by Assam Governor Jagdish Mukhi, Chief Minister Sarbanand Sonowal and Union Tourism minister K L Alphons.

The three day program was organized by Union Ministry of Tourism in association with all North Eastern states.

The focus areas of 6^th ITM was to spotlight on India's "Act East Policy", blossoming ties with ASEAN and larger East Asia region, home to world's rapidly growing economies and India's emerging tourism markets.

It also held panel discussions, workshops, business to business (B2B) meetings, cultural programs.

ITM: Know More

• The International Tourism Mart is an annual event organised in North Eastern States on rotation basis.
• Its objective is to highlight tourism potential of region in domestic and international markets.
• It also brings together tourism business fraternity and entrepreneurs from the eight North Eastern States.
• The earlier editions of this mart were held in Guwahati, Shillong, Tawang, Gangtok and Imphal.

ANSWER: IRF Geneva

Explanation:
The National Institution for Transforming India (NITI Aayog) and the International Road Federation, Geneva (IRF Geneva) have on 21st Sept 2017 signed a Statement of Intent (SoI) to cooperate in the field of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS).

The objective of the SoI is to create a national platform, involving all relevant Government of India stakeholders, Indian and foreign companies active in the sector, and relevant technical experts for the purpose of developing a National ITS Policy covering:

1) Traffic Management,

2) Parking Management,

3) Electronic Enforcement of Traffic Rules and Regulations,

4) Fleet Management and Monitoring,

5) Innovation in the field of ITS, and

6) Education in the field of ITS.

Objectives of National ITS Policy

• The objectives of this national ITS Policy will be to contribute to reducing urban traffic congestion, improving the situation around parking of vehicles in cities, improving road safety, and improving the security of passenger and goods traffic.
• The work of this National Platform will provide a coherent and consistent National ITS Policy covering domains such as traffic and parking management, enforcement, and security.

ANSWER: Rajiv Kumar

Explanation:
Dr. Rajiv Kumar has taken charge as the new Vice Chairman of NITI Aayog today.

A renowned economist, he replaces Shri Arvind Panagariya as the head of the premier think tank of the country.

The new Vice Chairman said there would be more emphasis on improving Government capacity at the state level to ensure the values of co-operative and competitive federalism.

NITI Aayog is well placed to play the role of a platform that cuts across these issues. The thematic focus will be on generating employment, enhancing investment, improving ease of doing business, transforming agriculture, and reforming education and health.

Members of NITI Aayog: Shri Ramesh Chand, Shri VK Saraswat, Dr.VKPaul and CEO NITI Aayog, Shri Amitabh Kant.

ANSWER: NITI Aayog

Explanation:
NITI Aayog has developed a Handbook of State Statistics that consolidates key statistics across sectors for every Indian State/UT.

While the State data on crucial indicators is currently fragmented across different sources, this handbook provides a one-stop database of important State statistics.

Starting with Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP), the handbook provides sectorial compositions of State economies from 1980-81 to the latest possible year.

Five different GSDP series are available between 1980-81 and now, and this database covers all of them.

It covers statistics on State government finances from 1981 to 2017across indicators such as gross fiscal deficits, revenue deficits, social sector expenditure, capital expenditure etc.

Labour statistics from the national sample surveys (NSS), statistics on labour force participation rates (LFPR), worker-population ratio (WPR) by industry and unemployment rates are also presented.

Data on education covers primary, secondary and tertiary levels including enrolment ratios, schools, enrolment, teachers and performance indicators, among others.

Some of the health indicators covered by the handbook include infant mortality rate (IMR), birth rates, life expectancy, sex ratio at birth, immunisation and institutional deliveries among others.

For certain indicators such as IMR, TFR, birth rates, data from 1971 onwards to 2015 is available.

For other indicators the data series starts in 2005.

Data in the Handbook: Know More

• The final section of the publication provides state-wise estimates of poverty numbers. Data has been presented according to the Lakdawala Methodology (data from 1973-74 to 2004-05) and the Tendulkar Methodology (data from 1993-94 to 2011-12).
• Data is quinquennial, as estimates for poverty are derived from NSS Household Consumption Surveys.

ANSWER: Judicial performance index

Explanation:
The Niti Aayog has suggested introduction of a ‘judicial performance index’ to check delay in trial and address the issue of pendency of cases.

Asserting that corruption cases get held up in the judicial system inordinately, the policy think-tank has also recommended putting a time-limit for processing them.

In its draft three-year action agenda (for 2017-18 to 2019-20), the Aayog has suggested several judicial reforms.

This is including increasing the use of information and communication technology, and streamlining judicial appointments.

The draft was circulated among the Niti Aayog’s Governing Council members (consisting of chief ministers of all states and others) on April 23.

It takes eight years to finalise a major vigilance case from the date of occurrence of irregularity and underlined the need to speed up decision - making process in corruption cases.

The judicial system is another avenue where corruption cases get held up. Delays in obtaining justice encourage the corrupt and discourage those who are honest.

Beyond the larger reforms in the justice system to reduce pendency, special courts set up to try corruption cases should be strengthened and time limits to process corruption cases should be introduced.

The report has also suggested introduction of a ‘judicial performance index’.

Such an index could be established to help high courts and high court chief justices keep a track of performance and process improvement at the district courts and subordinate levels for reducing delay.

This would require fixing non-mandatory timeframes for different types of cases as broad guidelines to benchmark when a case has been delayed, it said.

ANSWER: United Nations

Explanation:
Celebrating the outstanding achievements of women in India, NITI Aayog, in partnership with MyGov and the United Nations, announces winners of the Women Transforming India Awards, 2017.

The awards ceremony recognizes the exceptional work of 12 women in critical areas such as preventing violence against women; bridging the gender gap in education; providing healthcare.

Additionally the awards recognize building livelihoods and enterprises for women; and promoting inclusion for persons with disabilities.

The awardees were selected after a rigorous process by an eminent jury comprising P.T. Usha, track and field Olympian; Pooja Thakur, Wing Commander, Indian Air Force; Nirupama Rao, Former Foreign Secretary and Ambassador, Arvind Panagariya, Vice Chairman, NITI Aayog; Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog and Yuri Afanasiev, UN Resident Coordinator.

Launched on International Women’s Day on 8 March, the contest aimed to gather lesser-own stories of women leading change.

It was hosted on MyGov.in and ran till 1 June and was supported by an extensive outreach campaign to promote equal opportunity for women.

Top 6 Contestants

Laxmi Agarwal: Attacked in 2005 in broad daylight at the age of 15, Laxmi Aggarwal is today a champion of violence against women.

She has filed public interest litigations in India’s highest court to restrict the sale of acid.

Safeena Husain: The founder and executive director of Educate Girls, a non- profit organization working for girls’ education, Safeena Husain has worked to bring education to some of India’s most backward districts.

Kamal Kumbhar: Broke free from the shackles of poverty and a suffocating marriage to create a micro-enterprise network, enabling women like herself to realise their dreams of a brighter tomorrow.

Subasini Mistry: After losing her husband at a young age, Subasini Mistry saved for two decades to build a hospital for the needy.

Arunima Sinha: Is the first female amputee to scale the highest mountain in the world.

Jamuna Tudu: Along with her band of women activists, Jamuna Tudu has conserved 50 hectares of forest land around her village in Jharkhand, taking on encroachers with little more than bows and arrows and courage.