Sahitya Akademi Awards in 20 languages announced

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman chaired the pre-budget consultations with the Finance Ministers of States and Union Territories for Union Budget 2022-23 in New Delhi on Thursday. The meeting was attended by Union Minister of State for Finance, Chief Ministers, Deputy Chief Ministers, Finance Ministers, Ministers and Senior Officers from the States and Union Territories and the Union Government. The Finance Secretary welcomed all the participants to the deliberation and informed the importance of this particular consultation meeting. Most of the participants thanked the Union Finance Minister for financially supporting their States and Union Territories during the worst months of pandemic, by enhancing borrowing limits, providing back to back loans to States and through special assistance for capital expenditure. The participants also gave numerous suggestions to the Union Finance Minister for inclusion in the Budget Speech. Ms Sitharaman thanked the participants for their inputs and suggestions towards Union Budget 2022-23 and assured to examine each of the proposals.

-Sahitya Akademi has announced its annual Sahitya Akademi Awards in 20 languages on Thursday. Seven books of poetry, two novels, five short stories, two plays, one biography, one autobiography, one critique and one Epic Poetry have won the Sahitya Akademi Awards 2021. Awards in Gujrati, Maithili, Manipuri and Urdu languages will be announced at a later date. Assamese writers Anuradha Sarma Pujari and Namita Gokhale have won the award in the novel category. Awardees for Poetry category include Mwdai Gahai in Bodo, Sanjiv Verenkar in Konkani, Hrushikesh Mallick in Odia and Vindeshwari Prasad in Telegu. The awards, recommended by distinguished jury members in 20 Indian languages, were approved by the Executive Board of the Sahitya ASkademi which met today under Chairmanship of Dr Chandrashekhar Kambar, President of Sahitya Akademi.

-A High Level Committee under the chairmanship of Home Minister Amit Shah has approved over Rs 3,063 crore of Additional Central Assistance to six states. Assam, Gujarat, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand and West Bengal will get funds for floods, landslides and cyclones that occurred during this year.The Committee has approved Additional Central Assistance of over 1,133 crore rupees to Gujarat for cyclone Tauktae and 586.59 crore rupees to West Bengal for cyclone Yaas. For floods and landslides during the South West Monsoon, 51.53 crore rupees will be given to Assam, 504.06 crore rupees to Karnataka, 600.50 crore rupees to Madhya Pradesh and 187.18 crore rupees will be given to Uttarakhand. This additional assistance is over and above the funds released by the Centre to the States in the State Disaster Response Fund, already placed at the disposal of the states. During the financial year 2021-22, the Central Government has released over  17 thousand 747 crores to 28 states in their SDRF. Further, more than 3,543 crore rupees has been released to seven states from NDRF.

-External Affairs Ministry has said, Arunachal Pradesh has always been and will always be an integral part of India. Responding to media queries on reports that China has renamed some places in Arunachal Pradesh in its own language, Ministry Spokesman Arindam Bagchi said, assigning invented names to places in Arunachal Pradesh does not alter this fact. He said, this is not the first time China has attempted such a renaming of places in the state. China had also sought to assign such names in April 2017.

-In Assam, the Asom Gana Parishad President and Agriculture Minister Atul Bora said that the party would continue to contest all forthcoming elections in the state as part of the ruling BJP-led coalition. Talking to news persons in Guwahati on Thursday, Bora said that the party is set to add 25 lakh new members during the next year. He also said that Assam has set a target to produce 10 lakh litres of milk daily. Bora said that to achieve this target, the Assam Government would sign a treaty with the National Dairy Development Board soon.
 

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