Pb. Current Affairs - UPSC Preparation Made Easy

March 04, 2020

Topic: Punjab Budget.

Economic revival is in progress, asserts the Punjab government.
Punjab’s expenditure is around ₹10000 crores less than Haryana’s expenditure.
The Finance minister of Punjab has also claimed that the revenue deficit of Punjab would be half than that of Haryana.
The receipts of the state are at par with the receipts of Haryana.
Punjab was behind the National average of the country with respect to the Gross state domestic product ( GSDP) by 0.3% but now it has surged ahead.
Punjab’s contribution to the central taxes is 2.87 %.
But the state gets back around 1.78%.
Around ₹10000 crore loss is being fact by the state.
The GST regime has further created issues for the state as it is facing losses.
Legacy food credit bill of ₹31000 crores is also an issue, Even though the government is taking some commendable steps to deal with this situation.

(Source:- The Tribune)

A team from Punjabi University, Patiala has developed label generating rules for validating International domain names in Gurmukhi.
Dr Gurpreet Singh Lehal from the University has played a pioneering role in this development.
Now, it has been made possible to create websites with web addresses and e-mail identities in Gurmukhi.
So, Gurmukhi has become one of the 16 scripts through which domain names could be created.
This will lead to the breaking of the language barrier as the people who can read or write only in Punjabi can utilise the internet services.
The international reach of the language would also increase as the internet is a great medium of information.
The International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers ( ICANN) has recognised the contribution of Punjabi University in this regard.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is an American multistakeholder group.
It is responsible for coordinating the maintenance and procedures of several databases related to the namespaces and numerical spaces of the Internet, ensuring the network’s stable and secure operation.
ICANN performs the actual technical maintenance work of the Central Internet Address pools and DNS root zone registries pursuant to the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) function contract.

Its headquarters are located in Los Angeles, California.

It was founded in 1998 by Jon Postel.

(Source:- The Tribune)

Sangrur shows the lowest pendency of applications.
The citizen-centric services are being provided in the Sewa Kendras across the state.
252 citizen-centric services such as the issuance of birth and death certificates, caste certificates, arms licenses, etc are provided by the Sewa Kendras.
Sangrur district has been doing well in disposing of applications associated with the citizen-centric services.
The pendency of applications at Sangrur is the lowest – 0.45 %.
Whereas the pendency is the highest in Amritsar – 8.66%.
It is followed by Ropar – 5.42 % and then by Ludhiana – 4.8%.

(Source:- The Tribune)

The state Department of Medical Education and Research has come up with a policy dealing with the fee structure.

The notification deals with the fee structure for postgraduate medical courses in three private medical institutes.
Aa per the notification, students in the government colleges will pay ₹ 4.5 lakh fee – ( 3 year clinical and surgery courses).

Dayanand Medical College ( DMC), Ludhiana.
Sri Guru Ram Das University of Health Science, Amritsar.
Christian Medical College, Ludhiana.
Will pay ₹19.5 lakh.
Adesh Medical University would stipulate its fee structure as per the Adesh University Act.
The fee for MD and MS in government medical colleges has been fixed at ₹3.3 lakh.
While in private ones, the fees would be ₹ 7.8 lakh.
Rest reservation of the seats would go as per the rules framed for the same purpose

(Source:- The Tribune)