Jal Shakti Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat on Wednesday launched the Digital Dashboard for District Ganga Committees Performance Monitoring System. In his address, Mr. Shekhawat stated that the Digital Dashboard launched will help the District Ganga Committees DGCs in enhancing people-river connect. Pointing out that some DGCs are not conducting regular meeting, he urged the District Magistrates to make sure that Ganga cleaning becomes a priority and under the chairmanship of District Magistrates cleanliness in River Ganga is ensured.

The Minister added that cleaning of Ganga means cleaning of all its tributaries and it is important that the district officials take ownership of the assets created under Namami Gange Programme in the Ganga Basin and ensure their smooth functioning.

Parliament has passed the Criminal Procedure (Identification) Bill 2022 with the Rajya Sabha approving it on Wednesday. The House also rejected the amendments moved by the opposition to refer the bill to the Select Committee. As many as 59 members voted in the favour of the amendments while 97 against it. The Lok Sabha has already passed the bill. The Bill seeks to authorise taking measurements of convicts and other persons for the purposes of identification and investigation in criminal matters and to preserve records.  It provides for legal sanction for taking appropriate body measurements of persons who are required to give such measurements which include finger-impressions, palm-print and foot-print impressions, photographs, iris and retina scan, physical, biological samples and their analysis among others.

The legislation also empowers the National Crime Records Bureau of India to collect, store and preserve the record of measurements and for sharing, dissemination, destruction and disposal of records.  The Bill provides for empowering police or prison officers to take measurements of any person who resists or refuses to give measurements. The new legislation also  replaces the Identification of Prisoners Act, 1920

The NEET-UG 2022 for admission to undergraduate medical education in all medical institutions will be conducted on 17th July. The National Testing Agency NTA has started the NEET 2022 registration on the website
neet.nta.nic.in
and online submission of application form can be done through the website. The test will be held in 13 languages at test centres across the country. The languages are English, Hindi, Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu. The Entrance Test shall consist of 200 multiple choice questions from Physics, Chemistry, Botany, and Zoology. 50 questions in each subject will be divided into two Sections. The duration of the Examination will be 3 hours 20 minutes and will be held from 2 PM to 5:20 PM. The test will be held in approximately 543 cities in India and 14 Cities Outside India.

This year, there will be no upper age limit for appearing in NEET. Earlier, it used to be 25 years with a relaxation of 5 years for reserved category candidates.

The National Testing Agency, NTA released a revised schedule yesterday for the conduct of Joint Entrance Exam JEE Mains 2022. The schedule has been revised for both sessions 1 and 2.

The JEE Main Session 1 will now be held on 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, and 29th of June 2022.

The JEE Main Session 2 will now be held on 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, and 30th of July 2022.

NTA said, the registration for Session 1 is over and the schedule for inviting the online application forms for Session 2 will be available soon.

The candidates have been advised to keep visiting websites
www.nta.ac.in
and
jeemain.nta.nic.in

Parliament has passed the Delhi Municipal Corporation (Amendment) Bill, 2022 with the Rajya Sabah approving it yesterday. The Amendments moved by the opposition were also negated. The Lok Sabha has already passed the bill.

The Bill seeks to further amend the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act, 1957 and proposes to unify the three existing Municipal Corporations of Delhi into one Municipal Corporation of Delhi.

It envisages bringing about greater transparency, improved governance and more efficient delivery of civic service for the people of Delhi. It also limits the number of councilors from 272 to the maximum of 250. At present the three corporations in Delhi, North, South and East Delhi Municipal Corporations, have a total of 272 seats. While North and South corporations have 104 wards each, the East Corporation has 64 wards.

Ayush Ministry will celebrate Yoga Mahotsav on World Health Day at Red Fort in New Delhi tomorrow. Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and several Union Ministers will demonstrate Common Yoga Protocol on 75th day of the countdown of the International Day of Yoga.

During the event, Members of the Parliament, Ambassadors of various countries, prominent Sports Celebrities and Yoga Gurus will participate.

The Ministry with its various stakeholders has chalked out a 100 days’ countdown programme of 8th International Day of Yoga wherein 100 organizations are promoting yoga in one hundred cities.

In the early hours of Monday morning, when the announcement was made for legendary drummer Stewart Copeland and Ricky Kej to receive the Grammy for Divine Tides (Lahiri Music) for the Best New Age Album, life for the Bengaluru musician seemed to have come full circle. Dressed in a navy blue bandhgala, Kej bent down on stage to touch Copeland’s feet and expressed gratitude to have joined him on his “musical journey”. “I grew up with his (Copeland’s) posters on my wall and today I have won a Grammy along with him. It’s amazing,” said 40-year-old Kej on stage. “In India, we have a saying – Vasudev Kutumbhkam – the world is one family… living in peace with the human species, and also with all entities on this planet. Divine Tides is about that co-existence,” added Kej.

Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur today launched the Broadcast Seva Portal in New Delhi. The portal will provide a single point facility to the stakeholders to request for required permission, registrations and licences. Speaking on the occasion, Mr Thakur said, government has harnessed technology to bring transparency in the system and make it more accountable.

He said, the Broadcast Seva Portal will reduce the turnaround time of applications and at the same time help applicants track the progress. This portal will reduce the human interface and will be a major step towards Ease of Doing Business. Mr Thakur added that the 360-degree digital solution will facilitate the stakeholders in seeking permissions, applying for registration, tracking applications, calculating fees and executing payments. This portal will provide its services under the wider umbrella efforts of Digital India to all stakeholders to private satellite TV channels, teleport operators, community and private radio channels.

The Lok Sabha has passed Criminal Procedure (Identification) Bill, 2022. The bill seeks to authorize for taking measurements of convicts and other persons for the purposes of identification and investigation in criminal matters and to preserve records. It provides legal sanction for taking appropriate body measurements of persons who are required to give such measurements which include finger-impressions, palm-print and foot-print impressions, photographs, iris and retina scan, physical, biological samples, and their analysis among others. It will make the investigation of crime more efficient and expeditious and will also help in increasing the conviction rate.

The legislation also empowers the National Crime Records Bureau of India to collect, store and preserve the record of measurements and for sharing, dissemination, destruction, and disposal of records. The bill provides for empowering police or prison officer to take measurements of any person who resists or refuses to give measurements.

University Grants Commission (UGC) has clarified that when Universities adopt Central Universities Common Entrance Test for UG admissions, they only need to register on National Testing Agency (NTA) Website. UGC Chairman Jagadesh Kumar said, Universities do not have to pay fees to National Testing Agency and UGC to adopt it. He also said, there is no need to sign an MoU with NTA and UGC. Mr Kumar said, Universities can verify the scores against NTA data which will be made available to them when students submit their Central Universities Common Entrance Test scores during admission.