VISION

The device sprays nebulised water droplets into the air through high-pressure propellers to curb dust pollution

•More than two months after the Supreme Court ordered the installation of anti-smog guns at all large construction sites among other locations to reduce dust pollution, the devices have been installed at 14 of the 47 large projects in Delhi.

•But most of the government agencies, including the municipal corporations and the Public Works Department, are yet to comply to letters sent by the Delhi Pollution Control Board (DPCC) to instal anti-smog guns, said officials.

•The anti-smog gun sprays nebulised water droplets into the air through high-pressure propellers, which help dust particles settle down. “The remaining 33 sites have informed us that they will instal the anti-smog guns as soon as they get the supply,” a Delhi government official told The Hindu.

•On January 13, the Supreme Court had said that anti-smog guns should be mandatory in projects that require environmental clearance from the State or Centre, and have a built-up area of over 20,000 square metres.

•The DPCC then made a list of all projects that have taken an environmental clearance and wrote to them on January 22, asking them to come up with a plan in 30 days, and then gave them a deadline of March 18 to instal the devices. “We will analyse the condition and give a fresh deadline to the remaining 33 projects,” the official said.

•The DPCC wrote to all the five municipal bodies in Delhi, the Public Works Department, National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), National Buildings Construction Corporation (NBCC), Delhi Development Authority (DDA), and Delhi Jal Board (DJB) on January 16, and instructed them to issue directions to contractors who carry out the latter’s works to instal anti-smog guns.

•“Most of them are yet to respond to us except for NHAI and NBCC. All the municipal corporations said that they are busy with dealing with the COVID-19 outbreak. We will send them reminders,” the official said.

•An anti-smog gun has been parked at the construction site in India Trade Promotion Organisation (ITPO). But it has been used only at one spot.

•“For the last few days, it has been at this spot. We need a tractor to pull it as the 500-litre tank makes it heavy for even two people to move it. So, we have been using it only at this part of the site,” a worker told The Hindu.

•Though the site had rented two such devices, one was not functioning and the other was taken out of operation, according to officials at the site. The device was not able to control dust at the site as it was stationed only spot in the vast area.

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SBI Clerk Mains Postponed- SBI has released the notice regarding postponment of the Main exam for Junior Associate or Clerk on its official website sbi.co.in The exam has been delayed due to coronavirus pandemic in the nation. The State Bank of India has released 8000+ vacancies for Clerical recuitment this year and the result of the Preliminary exam is still awaited. The bank has not declared the new date on which the SBI Clerk Mains will be conducted. You can download the official notice from the link given below:

SBI Clerk Mains Postponed- Download Notice

•Utkal Divas (Odisha Day) is celebrated every year on 1st April all over Odisha. Odisha Day is celebrated in the memory of the formation of the state as a separate province on 1 April 1936. This year marks the 83rd Utkal Divas or the foundation day of Odisha. Odisha was born as a separate state on April 1, 1936, on a linguistic basis. The state was carved out of the combined Bengal-Bihar-Orissa province.

2) International Transgender Day of Visibility: March 31

It asks the media to publish official version to avoid panic; government told to issue a daily bulletin

•The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the right to free discussion about COVID-19, even as it directed the media to refer to and publish the official version of the developments in order to avoid inaccuracies and large-scale panic.

•It ordered the government to start a daily bulletin on COVID-19 developments through all media avenues in the next 24 hours.

•A Bench, led by Chief Justice of India Sharad A. Bobde, was responding to a request from the Central government that media outlets, in the “larger interest of justice”, should only publish or telecast anything on COVID-19 after ascertaining the factual position from the government.

•A Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) report in the court, signed by Union Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla, explained that “any deliberate or inaccurate” reporting by the media, particularly web portals, had a “serious and inevitable potential of causing panic in larger section of the society”.

•The Ministry said any panic reaction in the midst of an unprecedented situation based on such reporting would harm the entire nation. Creating panic is also a criminal offence under the Disaster Management Act, 2005, the Ministry said.

•But the court took a view balancing free press and the need to avoid panic in society during an unprecedented crisis. “We expect the media [print, electronic or social] to maintain a strong sense of responsibility and ensure that unverified news capable of causing panic is not disseminated. A daily bulletin by the Government of India through all media avenues, including social media and forums to clear the doubts of people, would be made active within a period of 24 hours as submitted by the Solicitor- General of India. We do not intend to interfere with the free discussion about the pandemic, but direct the media refer to and publish the official version about the developments,” the court ordered. Noting that the 21-day nationwide lockdown was “inevitable” in the face of an “unprecedented global crisis” like the COVID-19 pandemic, the government blamed “fake and misleading” messages on social media for creating widespread panic, which led to mass “barefoot” journey of migrant workers from cities to their native villages in rural India.

Fake news

•“Deliberate or inadvertent fake news and material capable of causing a serious panic in the minds of the public is found to be the single most unmanageable hindrance in the management of this challenge... Will set up a separate unit headed by a Joint Secretary-level officer in the Health Ministry and consisting of eminent specialist doctors from recognised institutions like AIIMS to answer the queries of citizens,” the Ministry’s 39-page status report said.

•The Ministry said the Narendra Modi government, in fact, took “pro-active, pre-emptive and timely” action 13 days before even the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a “public health emergency of international concern”. Very few countries responded as well as India.

•But the mass migration of the poor would defeat the preventive measures taken by the Central government, the Ministry said. It said “there was no necessity for migrant workers to rush to their villages” when the Centre, fully conscious that no citizen should be deprived of basic amenities, had announced a Rs. 1.70 lakh crore package under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana to take care of their daily needs.

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