INTERNATIONAL
- Turkey lifts scarf ban on women soldiers.
- Turkey’s Army is lifting a historic ban on women officers wearing the Islamic headscarf in the officially secular country
- The move, ordered by the Defence Ministry, applies to officers working in the general staff and command headquarters and branches
- Women may wear the headscarf underneath their cap or beret so long as it is the same colour as their uniform and does not cover their faces.
- Turkey lifted a ban on the wearing of the Muslim headscarf, known as the hijab, on university campuses in 2010
- It allowed women students to wear the headscarf in state institutions from 2013 and in high school in 2014 and in the latest key reform before the Army’s move, Turkey in August for the first time allowed policewomen to wear the Islamic headscarf as part of their uniform.
NATIONAL
- Government to bring broadband to every village by 2018.
- Government has announced to bring high-speed broadband connectivity to every village by 2018. Department of Telecom is working to achieve this target under the Universal Services Obligation fund (USOF). In 2017-18 Union Budget speech, Union Finance Minister ArunJaitley had announced that Government will allocate Rs. 10,000 crore to expand the Bharat Net project in 2017-18 for high-speed broadband. Bharat Net aims to cover a total of 2.5 lakh village panchayats and is funded under the USOF. It was rebranded from the earlier National Optic Fibre Network (NOFN) project in April 2015. USOF was set up in 2012 to execute various digital infrastructure projects for providing telecom services in rural areas at subsidised rates. The money for this fund comes through a Universal Access Levy charged from the telecom operators as a percentage of various licenses fees paid by them.
- Kerala to become first state to launch first sex offender’s registry.
- The Kerala government will launch a registry of sex offenders. It will be the first of its kind registry in the country. It will contain all identification details of sex offenders and will be kept in public domain. Besides, Government will also set up a comprehensive victim relief fund to provide interim relief for victims of sex crimes, both children and adults.1st Gramin Khel Mahotsav to be held in Delhi India’s first Gramin Khel Mahotsav will be held in New Delhi from 25th to 31st March 2017. The games will be held in five sports disciplines Athletics, Volley Ball, Wrestling, Kabaddi and Kho-Kho. This festival will help participation of rural youth in large numbers in popular sports and encourage them to achieve excellence and adopt healthy life style. These games are intended to act as a catalyst to promote sports in rural areas across the country and will be replicated in other States/UTs as well.
RAJASTHAN
- MukhyaMantri Jal SawavlambanAbhiyan reached at the next level.
- Rajasthan is the largest state in the country.Geographically, it spreads across 342 lac hectares of land,out of which 60% constitutes of the Thar Desert. Waterscarcity is a prevalent problem in the region as it suffersfrom the lowest amount of precipitation in the countrythroughout the year. The high growth rate of thepopulation also raises the per capita water requirements.This ensured better water management techniques andrelated activities in the state. The vision of MukhyaMantriJal SwavlambanAbhiyan is to guarantee a successfulexecution of water gathering and protection relatedexercises in the rural regions of the state.
- The MJSA program is designed in a way that everything –from planning to execution would be followed in aparticipatory approach till the village community level.During the first year (Phase-2015-2016), 3,529 villages.were benefited, in the second year (Phase-II, 2016-2017)
Around 4200 villages have been identified on priority. In the coming 2 years (Phase-III, 2017-2018, Phase-IV 2018-2019) around 6,000 villages will be benefited each year.MJSA seeks to benefit around 20,000 villages in the state inthe later stages of the mission.