30-06-22 Daily-Tamilnadu-TNPSC Current Affairs

Nadu is among the top five achievers in the key parameters of Education such as access, Equity, Infrastructure and Governance processes, according to the the Union ministry of education’s Performance Grading Index (PGI) for 2019-20. The state has scored 906 points out of 1,000, an increase from 793 points in the previous year. However, the PGI district scorecard revealed that some districts have poor Learning outcomes. Chennai district was among the bottom 10 districts in learning outcomes with 395 points out of 600.

Dharmapuri and Villupuram districts have been deemed to have better learning outcomes compared to other districts, according to the new Performance Grade Index-District (PGI-D) 2019-20 report.

Surprisingly, Chennai with better infrastructure is among the bottom 10 districts with an overall score of 395 of 600. Of 290 points for learning outcome category, it scored 141, below the 50% mark. In fact, Tiruvallur and Kancheepuram districts, Chennai’s neighbouring districts, fared better compared to the state capital, registering overall scores of 420 and 419.

In the education index for 2019-20 released in 2021, Tamil Nadu had shown a big improvement as it was ranked among the top five achievers with 906 out of 1000 points with better performance in the key domains including access, infrastructure, equity and governance process over the previous year. However, the score for learning outcomes remained the same compared to previous year.

approves $250 mn loan for road safety

The World Bank has approved a $250 million loan to support the Government of India’s road safety programme for seven States under which a single accident reporting number will be set up to better manage post-crash events.

The India State Support Program for Road Safety, financed by the World Bank, will be implemented in Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. The $250 million variable spread loan from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) has a maturity of 18 years including a grace period of 5.5 years.

The project will also establish a national harmonised crash Database system in order to analyse accidents and use that to construct better and safer roads.

It will also fund Network expansion of basic and advanced life support ambulances and training of first responder caregivers to road crash victims on the spot.

The project will also provide incentives to the States to leverage private funding through Public Private PARTNERSHIP (PPP) concessions and pilot initiatives.

According to a World Bank study, road crashes are estimated to cost the Indian economy between 5% to 7% of GDP a year. Official government data show that each year road accidents in India kill about 1,50,000 people and injure another 4,50,000. More than half of the victims are pedestrians, cyclists, or motorcyclists and almost 84% of all fatalities are among road users between the working ages of 18-60 years.

India successfully conducts VL-SRSAM missile test off the coast of Odisha