The Uttar Pradesh government on Monday said that it has engaged 57.13 lakh workers under the MGNREGS, thereby emerging as the top state in the country to give employment under the rural employment guarantee scheme.

Briefing mediapersons here, Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Awanish Kumar Awasthi said that Uttar Pradesh now accounts for 18 per cent of the total workers employed under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) in the country and has generated 7.93 crore man-days.

“These 57.13 lakh workers are engaged across 56,981 panchayats out of the total 58,000 panchayats. During a meeting to review the lockdown and coronavirus situation, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has ordered to provide MGNREGA jobs to 10 lakh more people,” Awasthi said, adding that UP is followed by Rajasthan, which has engaged 53.45 lakh workers. Andhra Pradesh with 36 lakh workers and West Bengal with 26 lakh and Madhya Pradesh with 23.95 lakh workers are the other states with high MGNREGA employment.

Now, your Employees' Provident Fund (EPF) claims can be processed faster as the retirement fund body Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has launched a multi-location claim settlement facility to expedite member claims. Till now, EPF claims were processed based on jurisdiction of the establishment.

With the launch of the new facility, EPFO offices will be allowed to settle online claims from any of its regional offices across the country, the labour ministry said in a statement. All types of online claims i.e. provident fund, pension, partial withdrawal and claims and transfer claims can be processed under this new initiative, the retirement body mentioned.

Worth mentioning here is that operations at 135 regional offices were affected with different levels of severity due to the Covid induced lockdown. The ministry said it was observed that though many offices in Mumbai, Thane, Haryana and Chennai zones operate with even less than skeletal staff on account of COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a disproportionate increase in claim receipt due to recently introduced COVID-19 advance.

Due to this, claim pendency in these offices rose to higher levels leading to delay in claim settlement cycle. Meanwhile, other EPFO offices which were operating with 50% workforce settled Covid-19 advance claims within three days with the help of auto settlement mode. 

India joined the league of leading economies including USA, UK, EU, Australia, Canada, France and others to launch the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI), yesterday.

In collaboration with partners and international organizations, GPAI will bring together leading experts from industry, civil society, governments, and academia to collaborate to promote responsible evolution of Artificial Intelligence. It will also evolve methodologies to show how Artificial Intelligence can be leveraged to better respond to the present global crisis around COVID-19.

By joining GPAI as a founding member, India will actively participate in the global development of Artificial Intelligence, leveraging its experience around use of digital technologies for inclusive growth.

GPAI is a first initiative of its type for evolving better understanding of the challenges and opportunities around Artificial Intelligence using the experience and diversity of participating countries.

An earthquake of 5.3 magnitude shook parts of Gujarat at 8:13 PM last night. The epicentre of the tremor was located near Bhachau in Kutch district. In Kutch, Rajkot, Ahmedabad and Patan, many people rushed out of their houses. There is no report of any major damage to property or loss of life. However, some houses in Kutch
and adjoining districts developed cracks.

Chief Minister Vijay Rupani held telephonic conversation with collectors of Kutch, Rajkot and Patan districts that are located close to the epicentre of the quake. He directed the collectors to report damage, if any, and activate the disaster management cell.

Veteran Urdu poet Anand Mohan Zutshi Gulzar Dehlvi passed away Friday, less than a week after recovering from the novel coronavirus. He was 93.

“His corona test came negative on June 7 and we brought him home. Today he had lunch and at around 2.30pm, and after that he passed away,” his son Anoop Zutshi told PTI. “He was quite old, and the infection had left him very weak. So doctors are thinking it was possible a cardiac arrest,” he added.

Indian Railways is fully geared to provide COVID Care Centres to State Authorities. Trains with unit composition of 10 coaches, with patient capacity of 16 per coach have been made ready.

Railway Ministry said, a total of five thousand 231 coaches were modified to be used as COVID Care Centre. Telangana has asked for coaches to be stationed in three locations- Secunderabad, Kachiguda and Adilabad. Uttar Pradesh has finalized 24 stations for deployment. In Delhi, 10 coaches are stationed at Shakurbasti location.
   
The Ministry said, Zonal Railways have converted these coaches for a quarantine facility. The coaches can be used for very mild cases that can be clinically assigned to the COVID Care Centres as per guidelines issued by the Health and Family Welfare Ministry. These coaches can be used in areas where the state has exhausted the facilities and needs to augment capacities for isolation of both suspect and confirmed COVID cases. These facilities are part of the integrated COVID plan developed by Union Health Ministry and NITI Ayog.

Eminent Indian-American soil scientist Rattan Lal has been named this year's recipient of the World Food Prize for developing and mainstreaming a soil-centric approach to increasing food production that conserves natural resources and mitigates climate change. Lal, a native of India and a citizen of the United States, will receive the 2.5 lakh dollar award that honours his contribution throughout his career spanning more than five decades and four continents to promote innovative soil-saving techniques that benefit the livelihoods of more than 500 million smallholder farmers, improve the food and nutritional security of more than two billion people and saves hundreds of millions of hectares of natural tropical ecosystems.

Lal said the unbound joy and excitement of receiving the 2020 World Food Prize reminds me about the gratitude, privilege and honour of working for farmers from around the world.

Lal serves as Distinguished University Professor of Soil Science and founding Director of the Carbon Management & Sequestration Center at The Ohio State University (OSU).

The Gujarat forest department has suggested that the Asiatic Lion population in Gir national park has increased by 29% in the past five years — from 523 in 2015 to 674 in 2020. The department has also said the distribution area of lions in the Saurashtra region of Gujarat, where Gir is situated, has increased by 36% from 22,000 sqkm in 2015 to 30,000 sqkm.

“Over the last several years, the Lion population in Gujarat has been steadily rising. This is powered by community participation, emphasis on technology, wildlife healthcare, proper habitat management and steps to minimise human-lion conflict. Hope this positive trend continues!,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted.

Shyamlal Tikadar, Gujarat’s chief wildlife warden and principal chief conservator of forests, said the Asiatic lion, which once faced the threat of extinction, has shown extraordinary recovery , thanks to the timely intervention by the erstwhile Nawab of Junagadh and protection programmes of the Gujarat government.

The Bangladesh Government has launched an online network to facilitate plasma exchange between recovered patients of COVID 19 and those undergoing treatment for Corona infection in the country. The initiative named ‘Shohojodha’ has been launched by the ICT division of the government of Bangladesh in collaboration with Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), a2i innovation lab and eGeneration to facilitate collection and distribution of plasma from patients who have recovered from Coronavirus.
 
Launching the network through a virtual programme on Tuesday, the State ICT Minister Zunaid Ahmad Palak said that the government is implementing IT infrastructure over the existing system to improve health outcomes concerning Coronavirus. The plasma therapy for the Coronavirus patients in Bangladesh is under trial process awaiting final approval from the government.
 
In the meanwhile, the number of deaths and new infections reached record levels on Tuesday with 45 patients dying and 3171 new Coronavirus infections taking place in the country. According to the latest figures of the DGHS, till Tuesday, 975 patients had died while 71,675 persons were infected in the country. Bangladesh reported the first Corona positive case on March 8 while the first death was reported on March 18.