Morning Current Affairs: 5 January 2018

Maharashtra government to form education board for non-English medium schools

The state government of Maharashtra has decided to form an international education board to prepare the syllabus for the non-English medium schools.

In the first phase, 100 selected Marathi schools will function according to the new syllabus. Besides this, the government would also be looking into the issue of reducing non-teaching tasks of teachers in the coming days.

The state and Union governments have been using teachers for several non-teaching tasks, including for carrying out surveys and census from time to time apart from deploying them for election duty.

Three Ministries sign MoU for joint funding of Technology Mission for Indian Railways

Three Ministries of the Union Government, the Ministry of Railways, Ministry of Human Resource Development and the Department of Science & Technology on 4 January 2018 signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) at Rail Bhawan, New Delhi for joint funding of Technology Mission for Indian Railways.

Under the MoU, Ministry of HRD and Ministry of Science & Technology have agreed to fund the TMIR projects to the tune of Rs 75 crore each while Railways and Industries would also be contributing to their respective shares.

The Technology Mission will take up research and development projects in the areas of heavy haul, safety, energy, environment and urban railways. The projects will be implemented through a Mission Implementation and Coordination Committee having members from the three Ministries, academia and industry.

Senior NCP leader Vasant Davkhare passes away

Senior leader of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Vasant Davkhare passed away on 4 January 2018 in Mumbai, after suffering from a prolonged illness. He was 67.

Davkhare was first elected as corporator in the Thane Municipal Corporation in 1986. In 1987 he was elected as the Mayor of Thane Municipal Corporation. He became the

Deputy Chairman of the Maharashtra Legislative Council in 1998. In July 2010, he was re-elected unopposed to the post. From 1992 till recently, Davkhare was elected four times to the Legislative Council. Davkhare was away from active politics since the last one year due to his failing health.

He is survived by his son, Niranjan Davkhare who is an NCP MLC. His wife Shakuntala Davkhare had passed away in May 2010 due to a massive cardiac arrest.