NATIONAL JULY 2010

NATIONAL JULY 2010

• The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Rural Development heading by Sumitra Mahajan while approving the Constitution (110thAmendment) Bill, 2009, submitted its report in both Houses of Parliament. The Bill is aimed at enhancing reservation of seats for women to 50 per cent of total number of offices in the Panchayats. 
• Rashtrapati Bhavan was presented with an International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) 14001:2004 Certificate for having emerged as the country's first urban habitat with excellent environmental management systems.
• For the first time in over four decades women constables of the Border Security Force took part in the ‘Beating Retreat Ceremony' at the India-Pakistan Attari-Wagah border near Amritsar. 
• Pune has become the first municipal corporation in India to have a Right to Information (RTI) library named after Prakash Kardaley, a journalist from the city, who had a major role in the drafting of the Right to Information Act. 
• The first commercial landing of the Airbus A380, the largest aircraft of the world, took place at the newly inaugurated Terminal 3 of the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi. 
• As part of the 150th birth anniversary celebrations of Rabindranath Tagore a book was published on the Nehru-Gandhi family's connection with Santiniketan Titled “Three Chancellors” compiled by Nilanjan Bandopadhyay. 
• During the meeting of the Chief Ministers of the Naxal-affected States in New Delhi, the Union government asked Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Jharkhand and West Bengal, worst affected by Maoist violence, to set up a Unified Command headed by the four States' Chief Secretaries. 
• The prestigious Mahatama Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development (MGIEP), a UNESCO institute, will be unveiled on the birth annniversary of Gandhiji on October 2 in New Delhi. It will be the maiden category I institute of UNESCO to be located in Asia. Out of 11 such institutes, nine are situated in the developed world and two is in Ethiopia and Venezuela. 
• The Union government has set up an oversight committee chaired by Union Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh to coordinate and monitor the clean-up of the Bhopal gas leak disaster site. 
• The Union Health Ministry approved the revised draft that proposes a National Committee for Accreditation and a National Medical Education and Training Board that will register and accredit medical colleges and prepare curricula for all streams of education in the health sector. 
• The Union Cabinet cleared the Nalanda University Bill 2010, paving the way for the establishment of Nalanda University in Rajgir, Bihar near the original Nalanda University site at an estimated cost of Rs. 1,005 crore.