PM, Defence Minister pay floral tributes to General Rawat, others

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and NSA Ajit Doval on Thuesday paid floral tributes to Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat, his wife and defence personnel who lost their lives in the chopper crash. The mortal remains of those who lost their lives in chopper crash were brought to Palam airbase in Delhi by an Indian Airforce aircraft from Sulur. Chiefs of Army Staff, Naval Staff and Air Staff also paid their last respects. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh met the bereaved families of General Bipin Rawat and other Armed Forces personnel who lost their lives in the chopper crash.Civilians can pay tribute to General Bipin Rawat from 11 AM to 12:30 PM at his residence on Friday. Military personnel will pay respects between 12:30 PM to 1:30 PM. Thereafter, the mortal remains will be taken in a gun carriage for funeral to the Brar Square Crematorium. Indian Army said, positive identification of only three mortal remains has been possible as of now, that of General Bipin Rawat, Madhulika Rawat and Brigadier LS Lidder. 

-Maharashtra Deputy Chief minister Ajit Pawar has said, the state government is of the view that for polling on all seats in local bodies on December 21 should be held together or be postponed all together. Pawar while speaking to the media said, a similar situation like the one witnessed in Maharashtra had occurred in four- five states earlier, but the judiciary had then given a different verdict and in Maharashtra they have given a different verdict.  Pawar said,  therefore, the state government has decided to file an affidavit in the Apex Court stating that the legislation which was rectified has not been stayed but the polling on OBC seats has been stayed by the court. He said his government does not want to do injustice to one group of people as the court has allowed elections for all other seats except the ones reserved for OBCs. Meanwhile, state Civil Supplies Minister Chaggan Bhujbal met senior lawmakers to discuss the issue. Bhujbal has also informed that the state government will challenge the decision of the Supreme Court to postpone the elections for the 27 per cent reserved seats for other backward classes in the local bodies through the All India Mahatma Phule Samata Parishad intervention petition.

-In a bid to further strengthen healthcare profile of Jammu and Kashmir, the State Health Agency (SHA) has empanelled 12 new private hospitals in the Union Territory in a short span of past three months. AIR Correspondent reports that this addition of healthcare institutes is a step forward towards further expanding and building a strong network of hospitals and service capabilities in J&K. The SHA is devotedly working hard towards streamlining medicare in the UT to ensure cashless service delivery to the beneficiaries under Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana- SEHAT. The scheme provides health insurance cover of 5 lakh rupees per family per year to all the residents of the UT including serving and retired employees. -
-Maharashtra government will soon come up with an e-monitoring system to ensure the quality of production and distribution of farming raw materials. State Agriculture Minister Dadaji Bhuse had a meeting with the officials of his department  and discussed on the implementation of a plan to curb mal practices related to farming materials. He said in order to check adulteration in seeds and pesticides, a system of tracking on manufacturing companies would be set up which would ensure that there is no adulteration in them. The Minister said besides stock information on the basis of how much stock is given to farmers would also be tracked. Mr Bhuse said for this, three different applications namely e-inventory, e-inspector and e-lab will be created by state IT department and these three applications will be connected to each other.  The e-lab system will ensure that the products produced in the manufacturing company reach the farmers properly. He said a report on how many farmers were given seeds and pesticides from the Agricultural Sales Center will also be prepared which will curb the black market.