18-19-06-23 Daily-Tamilnadu-TNPSC Current Affairs

Restoration and management of Ramsar sites and other wetlands under the recently-founded TN Wetland Mission has run into trouble as the law department has raised concerns about violating procedure in selecting two agenciesAnna UniversityandSaconto draw up proposals and implement projects.

The mission was launched onWorld Environment Daywith much fanfare last year. Soon after, 14 crore was spent to create an inventory and to prepare integrated wetland management proposals. The two institutions were selected and were told to do the work to create management plans and to create Health cards of 13 Ramsar sites and 100 wetlands.
This is to assess water and quality, survey of lake boundaries, identifying encroachments, dumping of sewage and garbage.

However, the state law department has said that the Mission didn’t follow the rules under Tender Transparency Act. Instead of calling tenders, the authorities used the sections that allowed them to grant procurement of Services directly. Now, the officials said, they were hopeful that the approval will be received in a month.

Under section 16 B (b) of TN Tender Transparency Act, they need to justify why a tender was not called. Sacon and Anna University were paid about 4 crore for the proposals. However, officials from the mission confirmed this and said that it was an error in judgement as they wanted to speed up the process.

Twelve Indian states, includingBiharand Uttar Pradesh, have formed the Transgender Welfare Board but the capital still lacks one. In June, designated the ‘Pride Month’ across the world to celebrate sexual minorities, many members of the transgender community are expressing disappointment at the lack of attention given to the trans community in Delhi.

The state welfare boards are meant to provide income assistance, housing, Education, EMPLOYMENT and healthcare to transgender people. In response to a notice issued by the <a href="https://exam.pscnotes.com/national-human-rights-commission”>National Human Rights Commission, the Delhi social welfare department had once claimed to have accorded approval to the constitution of the transgender welfare board in the city and it was being processed for notification. The expectation that the board would be setupsoon hasn’t materialised.

In 2021, the Union social Justice ministry initiated 13 shelters for transgenders known as “Garima Greh”. The homes were set up under the SMILE (Support for Marginalised Individuals for Livelihood and Enterprise) scheme in accordance with The Transgender Rights Act. As per the guidelines, each Garima Greh is to be granted Rs 36.5 lakh each year.

Indias Internet economy is expected to grow sixfold to $1 trillion by 2030 from $175 billion in 2022, a report fromGoogle, Temasek and Bain & Company showed.

The report said confluence of three crucial forces — digital-seeking behaviours among internet users in tier-2 locations; the digitization of large, traditional businesses along with a growing startup ecosystem; and the success of Indias homegrown digital public goods or the India Stack — has positioned the internet economy for acceleration.

The contribution of the internet economy to Indias technology sector is set to expand, from the present 48% to 62% in 2030, while its share in Indias GDP will increase from 4-5% to nearly 12-13%.

With Indias 700 million internet users transacting more via real-time digital payments and spending more time on online video-streaming Services and Social Media than global Averages, the internet economy is set to expand beyond its current base.

This Growth will be founded on consumers seeing their household incomes double by 2030 from approximately $2,500 to $5,500 by 2030. Tier-2 consumers indicated a greater openness to experimentation with new brands and products, and to directing their increased spending towards personalization and premiumization, especially for healthtech and edtech, the report said.

Digital technology will be a major contributor to the countrys GDP Growth this decade, saidVAnantha Nageswaran, chief economic adviser, Government of India. He was speaking at the interaction organised by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham) in the city.

He said that capital Investment and digital technology will help achieve positive growth as online usage in India is well ahead of the largest digital economy with respect to digital payment. My expectation is that capital investments by businesses, which was absent last decade, will add about 0.3% to 0.5% to growth of GDP and digital economy another 0.3% to 0.5%, he said.

Indias Real GDP growth for the year ending March 2023 was 7.2%, surpassing expectations. The final number will be higher than 7.2% as the underlying momentum in the economy is quite strong, he added.

According to the data, India recorded a staggering 89.5 million digital transactions during the review period. This accounted for a remarkable 46 percent share of the worlds real-time payments in 2022, surpassing the combined digital payments of the next four top countries.

The Growth of digital payments in India has witnessed significant milestones in terms of both value and volume. Experts from the Reserve Bank Of India (RBI) highlighted the countrys strong payment ecosystem and the acceptance of digital modes by Indian citizens as key factors contributing to Indias digital payments success.

Brazil secured the second position in digital payments with 29.2 million transactions, followed by China at third place with 17.6 million transactions. Thailand and South Korea secured the fourth and fifth spots, respectively, with 16.5 million and 8 million transactions.