• Union Minister for Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises(MSME) has urged all the female entrepreneurs to take maximum benefits from various MSME portals like  Sambandh and Udyam Sakhi Portal.
• MSME Sambandh: This portal aims to help in monitoring the implementation of public procurement policy for micro and small enterprises.
• Udyam Sakhi: It aims to encourage women entrepreneurs by creating business models revolving around low-cost products and services to resolve social inequities.

Other Important Portals for MSME Sector

• MSME Samadhan: It empowers micro and small entrepreneurs across the country to directly register their cases relating to delayed payments.
• MSME Sampark: It is a digital platform wherein jobseekers (passed out trainees/students of MSME Technology Centres) and recruiters get connected.
• Udyami Mitra Portal: It was launched by Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) to improve accessibility of credit and handholding services to MSMEs.

• The Chairman of the Fifteenth Finance Commission, has constituted a Committee to review the  fiscal consolidation roadmap of the general government
• The Committee shall make recommendations on the definition of deficit and debt for the Central government, overall states, the General Government and public sector enterprises by considering all explicit and measurable liabilities of the sovereign and by bringing in consistency between the definition of debt (stock) and deficit (flow).
• The Committee shall also lay down the principles for arriving at the debt of the general government debt and consolidated public sector with appropriate netting to avoid double-counting.
• The Committee shall define contingent liabilities, provide quantifiable measures of such liabilities, wherever possible, and specify conditions under which “contingent” liabilities become “explicit” liabilities of the public sector.
• Based on the above, the Committee shall recommend a debt and fiscal consolidation roadmap for FY21-FY25 for the Central Government, overall States and General Government and attempt building up scenarios for public sector enterprises.

The Energy and Resource Institute (TERI) noted in a study that state-level guidelines must be created for sustainable resource usage in areas where community forest resource (CFR) rights are given under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 (FRA). The study was commissioned by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs (MoTA) in February 2019.

Key Features

• MoTA must issue broad guidelines and principles for implementation of CFRs, mentioning specific role of the state forest department, state tribal/social welfare department, revenue department and gram sabhas.
• State governments should prepare state-specific guidelines on the basis of MoTA’s guidelines.
• MoTa should focus on capacity-building of gram sabha members, assessment of the biomass stock and biodiversity conservation.
• Focus on capacity building programmes to educate various stakeholder government departments about the acts/schemes/policies.
• The micro-plans prepared by gram sabha for their respective CFR should be a part of the working plans of forest division concerned, so that forest staff could facilitate the implementation of sustainable forest management.

An analysis carried out by the Centre for Science and Environment has assessed  hourly trend in PM2.5 and NO2 levels during the day before and after the lockdown and also on the day of the Janata curfew.

Key Features

• As vehicles go off the road after the country-wide lockdown in the wake of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, the typical two humps of daily pollution coinciding with morning and evening traffic peak-hours have nearly flattened out in India’s big cities.
• As cities slow down to fight the pandemic, daily average levels of particulate matter of size less than 2.5 micron (PM2.5) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) have reduced sharply from the pre-lockdown days by close to more than half in Delhi and the towns of the national capital region (NCR).
• A similar trend is evident in other big cities including Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai. But the impact of this overall declining trend is dramatic on daily peak-hour pollution.
• This brings out the pronounced effect of traffic on hourly pollution trends. With traffic minimised, hourly trends have plummeted, reducing daily exposures to toxic vehicular pollution.

GreenCo Rating, developed by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), has been acknowledged in India’s Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) document, submitted to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2015, as a proactive voluntary action of Indian industry / private sector towards combating climate change.

Key Features

• Assessment and rating of major Workshops and Production Units of Indian Railways as Green Industrial Units started with ‘GreenCo’ certification in 2016-17.
• It helps the industrial units in identifying and implementing various possible measures in terms of energy conservation, material conservation, recycling, utilisation of renewable energy, Green House Gases (GHG) reduction, water conservation, solid and liquid waste management, green cover etc. Increasing focus in these areas helps Railways in resource conservation and reduction in intensity of environmental impact.

• Recently, Union Minister for Minority Affairs inaugurated the ‘Hunar Haat’ at Harmu Ground, Harmu Chowk in Ranchi (Jharkhand). This “Hunar Haat” was organised by Union Minority Affairs Ministry from 29th February to 08th March, 2020. This is for the first time that “Hunar Haat” was organised in Jharkhand. It was the 21st “Hunar Haat” of the Union Minority Affairs Ministry.
• “Hunar Haat” is an effective mission which has been ensuring that the common people become a part of mainstream economic development. It has been providing market and opportunity to India’s indigenous legacy of handmade art/crafts. It has proved to be magnificent platform to understand India’s rich cultural heritage under one roof.  

• The Ministry of AYUSH has initiated steps to set up a nationwide digital platform called “AYUSH GRID” which aims to bring onboard all AYUSH facilities including hospitals and laboratories and to promote traditional systems of healthcare.
• Ministry of AYUSH has conceptualized AYUSH GRID Project for digitalization of the entire AYUSH Sector.
• Currently, Ministry has launched Pilot Projects like AYUSH Hospital Information Management System (A-HMIS), Tele-Medicine, Yogaloctaor Application, Bhuvan Application, Yoga Portal, Case Registry Portal, etc. and these projects will be co-opted in AYUSH GRID Project in future.
• Ministry of AYUSH has also proposed to establish 12,500 AYUSH centres across the country for traditional system of healthcare and medicines by up gradation of existing State Government AYUSH dispensaries and Sub Health Centres by the year 2023-24.  Total financial allocation proposed for the scheme is Rs. 3399.35 crores over the time period of five years.

On 26th February, 2020, Union Finance Ministry launched the Ease (Enhanced Access and Service Excellence) 3.0, the new reform agenda for tech-enabled banking.

EASE 3.0 agenda aims at providing smart, tech-enabled public sector banking for aspiring India.

• It seeks to enhance ease of banking in all customer experiences, using technology, fintech, alternate data and analytics.
• It will include facilities like Palm Banking for end-to-end digital delivery of financial service, Banking on Go via EASE banking outlets, digitalised branch experience, tech-enabled agriculture lending among others.
• It emphasizes on the use of digital, analytics & AI, FinTech partnerships across customer service, convenient banking, end-to-end digitalised processes for loan sourcing and processing, analytics-driven risk management.

• The Centre will begin implementing the second phase of its Swachh Bharat mission in rural areas from April, focusing on solid and liquid waste management and the sustainability of the abolition of open defecation. The scheme will be implemented by the States, with a fund sharing pattern of 60:40 between the Centre and the States. In the north-eastern and Himalayan states, the Central share will be 90%.
• In February 2020, the Union Cabinet approved an allocation of Rs 52,497 crore for the Mission from the budget of the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation over the next four years.
• The remaining outlay of Rs 88,384 crore until 2024-25 will come via a convergence model, depending on funds released under the 15th Finance Commission and money allocated to the rural jobs guarantee scheme, as well as a revenue generation model being developed for solid and liquid waste management.

• Week long exhibition-cum-fair “EKAM Fest” was organised by National Handicapped Finance Development Corporation (NHFDC) under M/o Social Justice & Empowerment at New Delhi.
• EKAM Fest is an effort for promoting entrepreneurship and knowledge among Divyangjan community, generating awareness among society about potentialities of Persons with Disabilities (PwDs); providing a major marketing opportunity to PwDs entrepreneurs.
• NHFDC Foundation is making efforts for development of a brand and platform for marketing of products of these determined entrepreneurs. Accordingly, name of the brand has been arrived at Ekam (Entrepreneurship, Knowledge, Awareness, Marketing).