Current Affairs 5th August 2017

Current Affairs 5th August 2017 - Important Points

• Garo Tribe of Meghalaya MoU on - 3rd August 2017
• India’s first ever Heli-taxi service launched by - Bangalore
• Online portals MahaDBT, MahaVASTU launched by - Maharashtra Government
• Rs 3375-crore Mauritius metro order bagged by - L&T

Current Affairs 5th August 2017 - Details

Garo Tribe of Meghalaya MoU on - 3rd August 2017

The Garo Hills State Movement Committee (GHSMC) has submitted a memorandum to Prime Minister Narendra Modi demanding creation of Garoland for the Garo Tribe, to be carved out of tribal Garo inhabited areas in Assam and Meghalaya on 3rd August 2017.

The demand of GHSMC is in line with the States Reorganizations Act, 1956 and is the conglomeration of several Garo organizations, including the Garo National Council (GNC), a regional political party.

It is a tribe of North-eastern hills in India with a tradition of shifting hill cultivation mainly of Meghalaya. They are also live in Kamrup, Goalpara and Khasi hill regions of Assam, Mymensingh district of Bangladesh and in Jalpaiguri, Cooch-Behar districts of West Bengal.

They are the second-largest tribe in Meghalaya after the Khasi and are of about one third of the local population. These people speak Bodo–Garo branch of the Tibeto-Burman language family.
The economic life of the Garo tribes revolves around farming and agriculture.
Garo hills are suitable for cultivation where millet,paddy, cotton, pulses and maize are grown.
In Garo tribes, Women are the property owners, making Garo a matrilineal society.

India’s first ever Heli-taxi service launched by - Bangalore

Bengaluru has launched a helicopter taxi service from its International airport (Kempegowda International Airport, KIA) to Electronics city, thereby becomes the first city in the country to do so.
It's main aim is to ease the commuting process for people in the city, beat the city’s extreme traffic scene and save their precious time.

The Union Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha, while inaugurating the service on 4th August 2017, said, “we hope that Bengaluru will be leading the way for other cities to adopt such services. In Sao Paulo, Brazil which is a city similar to the size of Bengaluru, there are 300 helicopters operating as heli-taxis.”
Sinha stated that with the implementation of this service, travel will be seamless and there will be no need to fight traffic.
He further appealed to the operators to fix the price in such a way that it is competitive with air-conditioned road taxis.
Important Highlights

• The service, operated by Thumby Aviation Private Limited, is expected to start within three months.
• The operations would be taking off with one helicopter initially, Bell 407 chopper that has the capacity to seat 6 passengers.
• The services will be operated between KIA and Karnataka’s software hub Electronics city in the first phase only, which will have a heliport soon enough.

Online portals MahaDBT, MahaVASTU launched by - Maharashtra Government

Maharashtra Government launched MahaDBT and MahaVASTU, two online portals to streamline the process of Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) on 3rd August 2017. Aim of these portals is to bring in more transparency in construction sector and to provide direct benefits with 'Aadhaar' authentication.

Important Highlights

• It is an Aadhaar- authenticated electronic mechanism that will be enabling direct transfer of benefits for over 40 schemes currently implemented by state’s various departments.
• It is based on Union Government’s DBT scheme and Aadhaar will going to be mandatory to claim benefits through this portal.
• It will be helping to speed up transfer of benefits and ensure transparency by minimising human intervention.
• MahaVASTU is an Online Building Permission Management System to sanction building approvals with full transparency with an electronic workflow.
• It will be bringing all building permission processes online with zero human intervention in all municipal corporations.

Rs 3375-crore Mauritius metro order bagged by - L&T

Engineering conglomerate Larsen & Toubro announced Rs 3375 crore (18.8 Bn MUR) worth metro order from the Mauritius government in August 2017 .
The projects will going to be fully funded through a grant by Union Government and line of credit. In a press statement, the company said, “L&T has bagged the order from Metro Express Limited which is owned by the Mauritius Government for designing and building an Integrated Light Rail-based Urban Transit System in the African island nation.”
More about the Metro Project

• The project comprises of a 26-kilometer route, which will be connecting Cure pipe to Immigration Square in Port Louis.
• The metro line will be featuring 19 stations, 2 of which will going to be state-of-the-art elevated stations.
• The project is scheduled to be completed in 4 years approximately.
• L&T that bagged the projects through competitive bidding route has said in its press statement, “Although the project is  scheduled to be completed in 4 years, L&T is committing to complete and deliver a priority section of 13 km in 2 years only.”