CHIEF MINISTER’S TAMIL COMPUTING AWARD

The Tamil Development Department has invited applications for the Chief Minister’s Tamil computing Award.

The awardee is given a cash prize of Rs 2 lakh, a Sovereign Gold Medal and a certificate of merit.
The Award is being given by the Department of Tamil Development to encourage the best Tamil software developers for the development of Computer Tamil in order to spread the Tamil language worldwide.
This will be presented by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister on occasion of literary awards -Chithirai Tamil New Year awards ceremony every Year.

CITIIS

Chennai Corporation schools will get 400 more smart classrooms with funding from French agency and Smart Cities Mission.

CITIIS (City Investments To Innovate, Integrate and Sustain) is one of the main components of the ‘Program to fund Smart City projects through a Challenge Process’ launched by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) in 2018. The CITIIS Challenge is a collaborative effort of MoHUA, French Development Agency (AFD, France) and the European Union (EU).
CITIIS aims to foster sustainable, innovative and participatory approaches to projects within the Smart Cities Mission.
It also aims to promote integrated waste management and climate-oriented reform actions.
12 cities were selected under CITIIS 1.0 program through a challenge process.
It was launched in July 2018 with projects in 12 cities namely Agartala, Amaravati, Amritsar, Bhubaneshwar, Chennai, Dehradun, Hubbali-Dharwad, Kochi, Puducherry, Surat, Ujjain and Visakhapatnam.

The Government has approved the ‘City Investments to Innovate, Integrate and Sustain 2.0 (CITIIS 2.0)’.
The period of the program would be for 4 years.
It would span over a period of four years from 2023-2027.
It has 3 major components:
Component-1: Financial and technical support for up to 18 Smart Cities for projects promoting circular economy with focus on Integrated Waste Management.
Component-2: Support to all States/Union Territories (UTs) for Climate action.
Component-3: Interventions at National level to support scale-up across all cities and towns.
It will be implemented in 18 cities which would be selected based on a competition.

The Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu has unveiled the ‘Ungalai Thedi, Ungal Ooril’ scheme.
The initiative aims to streamline the resolution of public issues by fostering direct interaction between district collectors and the residents of various taluks.
It is to strengthen the bond between the government and the people, marking a significant step towards participatory governance.
It is built upon the foundation of the ‘Kalathil Mudhalvar’ scheme, designed to ensure the effective implementation of government programs.
Under this newly launched scheme, district collectors are mandated to spend a day each month in one of the taluks within their respective districts.
This hands-on approach is envisioned to bring the government closer to the grassroots level.
It is to ensure that schemes are not only efficiently implemented but also responsive to the diverse needs of the local population.

India’s first woman Supreme Court justice Fathima Beevi passes away at 96.

Justice Fathima Beevi is the first woman judge of the Supreme Court.
She served as the governor of Tamil Nadu from 1997 to 2001.
She was appointed as a judge of the Kerala High Court in 1983 and was elevated to a judge of the Supreme Court in 1989.
She served as a member of the National Human Rights Commission.

Section 17 of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) says the gram sabha “shall monitor the execution of works”.
Out of the 34 States and Union Territories, only six states have completed social audit of works done under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) in more than 50% of gram panchayats.
Kerala is the only State to cover 100% social audit works in gram panchayats.
It includes Bihar (64.4%), Gujarat (58.8%), Jammu and Kashmir (64.1%), Odisha (60.42%) and Uttar Pradesh (54.97%).
High rate of corruption is one of the primary complaints against the scheme and social audit is the inbuilt anti-corruption mechanism in the Act.