DAY 143Quick read

In England, the Court of Directors and Board of Control were abolished. In their place came the Secretary of State for India and India Council were established. The Secretary of State would be a member of the British cabinet. Sir Charles Wood was made the first Secretary of State for India. India Council consisting of 15 members would assist him.
The Governor General of India was also made the Viceroy of India. The first Viceroy of India was Lord Canning. On 1 November 1858 the Proclamation of Queen Victoria was announced by Lord Canning at Allahabad. It promised to respect the rights of princes, assured Indians of equal protection of law and religious freedom.

Objectives of the committee:
. To evaluate the SEZ policy and make it WTO compatible.
. To suggest measures for maximising utilisation of vacant land in SEZs.
. To merge the SEZ policy with other Government schemes such as coastal economic zones, Delhi-Mumbai industrial corridor, national industrial manufacturing zones and food and textiles parks.
Recommendations:
. Reincarnation of SEZs as employment and Economic Enclaves (3Es) and shift focus from export to economic and employment growth.
. Connectivity to remote SEZs through development of last mile and first mile connectivity.
. Tax benefits for services SEZs, extension of sunset clause, lowering taxes for identified strategic services and allowing supplies to the domestic market in Indian currency to bring parity between goods and services.

It is located north of JNPT in Maharashtra. India has 12 major and 205 notified minor and intermediate ports.
The port site at Vadhavan has an 18m draft naturally available and a 20m navigational channel also naturally available. This eliminates the need for any capital and maintenance dredging. The two largest container ports of the country, JNPT and Mundra, have drafts of 15m and 16m, respectively, whereas the world’s largest container-handling modern deep draft ports require a draft of at least 18-20m.
Vadhavan port will be developed on “landlord model”. All the business activities would be undertaken under the private-public partnership (PPP) mode by private developers. An SPV will be formed with Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) as the lead partner with equity participation equal to or more than 50% to implement the project.

A Producer Organisation (PO) is a legal entity (company, a cooperative society etc.) formed by primary producers, viz. farmers, milk producers, fishermen, weavers, rural artisans, craftsmen. Through formation of FPOs, the farmers will have better collective strength for better access to quality input, technology, credit and better marketing access through economies of scale for better realization of income.
Other features of the scheme:
. FPOs will be promoted under “One District One Product” cluster to promote specialization and better processing, marketing, branding & export by FPOs.
. Minimum number of members in FPO will be 300 in plain area and 100 in North East & hilly areas.
.Handholding support to each FPO would be continued for 5 years from its year of inception for which support will continue till 2027-28.

Indian Army functions under two parts namely Combat Arms and Services. The verdict allows all women serving as SSC to opt for PC-they are qualified for PC as much as all male SSC officers. It applies to women in all 10 branches of the SSC Arms/Services of the army. Further, command is now open to women officers-this doesn’t necessarily mean commanding to fight battalions, but that women can rise to the colonel level to be eligible for which 15 years of service is required. A command can also be of a non-fighting unit.
However, it does not amount to an affirmative action/reservation of jobs in PC or command position-it promises equality of treatment, but the discretion of granting command and PC posts lies with the Army and government.

Facebook launched the initiative in partnership with the National Commission for Women (NCW) and Cyber Peace Foundation. It seeks to provide digital literacy training to 1,00,000 women across seven states in Uttar Pradesh, Assam, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Jharkhand, and Bihar. Digital gender gap in India is huge, as less than a third of India’s total interest users are female i.e. 29 %. Its objective is to create digital leadership amongst women and help them use technology to empower, enable them to make smart choices and be secure from online risks.

Cheetah was officially declared extinct in India in 1952. IUCN status: African Cheetah- Vulnerable and Asiatic Cheetah – Critically endangered (surviving only in Iran). Asiatic Cheetah (around 50-70) is only found in Iran while African Cheetah is found in the wild in Africa.
Recently, the Supreme Court (SC) allowed the Centre to introduce the African cheetah from Namibia in Africa to a suitable habitat in India. SC now set up a three-member committee to ‘guide’ National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA). Decision for relocation of African cheetah will be taken after a proper survey and the action of introduction of the animal will be left to the NTCA’s discretion.

According to the guidelines, mining depth should be restricted to 3 meters and no riverbed mining operation allowed in monsoon period.
Other guidelines:
. Annual audit of each mining lease shall be carried out wherein three independent members of repute, nominated by District administration shall also participate.
. State Governments should develop an online portal for sale and purchase of sand and river- bed material.
. Abandoned stream channels on the floodplains should be preferred rather than active channels and their deltas and floodplains.
. It suggested the use of technology such as drones, mobile application and/or bar code scanners etc. for checking illegal mining, reserves estimation, quantity estimation, land use monitoring.

During the course of the Second World War, in order to secure the cooperation of the Indians, the British Government made the August Offer. Gandhi was not satisfied with the offer and decided to launch Individual Satyagraha. The other reason for this Satyagraha was that a mass movement may turn violent and he would not like to see Great Britain embarrassed by such a situation. This view was conveyed to Lord Linlithgow by Gandhi.
It was launched before(1940-1941) the Quit India movement(1942-1944).