Rajasthan becomes the first state to submit AMRUT mission action plan:-
Rajasthan has become the first state in the country to submit its annual action plan under the newly launched Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) targeting universal coverage in respect of water supply connections and sewerage connections to all urban households in the state.( http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=126813)
About AMRUT mission:
Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) is the new avatar of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM). But, in a significant departure from the earlier mission, the Centre will not appraise individual projects. (http://amrut.gov.in/writereaddata/The%20Mission.pdf)
Details of the Mission:
AMRUT adopts a project approach to ensure basic infrastructure services relating to water supply, sewerage, storm-water drains, transportation and development of green spaces and parks with special provision for meeting the needs of children.
Under this mission, 10% of the budget allocation will be given to states and union territories as incentive based on the achievement of reforms during the previous year.
AMRUT, which seeks to lay a foundation to enable cities and towns to eventually grow into smart cities, will be implemented in 500 locations with a population of one lakh and above.
It would cover some cities situated on stems of main rivers, a few state capitals and important cities located in hilly areas, islands and tourist areas.
Under this mission, states get the flexibility of designing schemes based on the needs of identified cities and in their execution and monitoring.
States will only submit state annual action Plans to the center for broad concurrence based on which funds will be released.
Central assistance will be to the extent of 50% of project cost for cities and towns with a population of up to 10 lakhs and one-third of the project cost for those with a population of above 10 lakhs.
Under the mission, states will transfer funds to urban local bodies within 7 days of transfer by central government and no diversion of funds to be made failing which penal interest would be charged besides taking other adverse action by the centre
The Rajasthan government has proposed projects worth Rs 1,087 crore for approval by the union urban development ministry during the current financial year.
Under the state’s annual action plan, AMRUT projects are proposed to be taken up in 13 of the 28 AMRUT cities in Rajasthan.
The state government will implement some mandatory reforms under AMRUT. It will create one website for each city, transfer all 18 functions to urban local bodies, revise building bye-laws, set up single window clearance for building permissions, ensure 90% coverage of tax revenue, undertake energy and water audit and migration to double entry accounting system in the next 6 to 12 months.
After broad scrutiny of the state annual action plans, the union urban development ministry will release the first installment of 20% of project costs to the states.
How does it affects the common man:
The purpose of Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) is to (i) ensure that every household has access to a tap with assured supply of water and a sewerage connection; (ii) increase the amenity value of cities by developing greenery and well maintained open spaces (e.g. parks); and (iii) reduce pollution by switching to public transport or constructing facilities for non-motorized transport (e.g. walking and cycling). All these outcomes are valued by citizens, particularly women.
As the Mission is just launched its too early to make a comment as of now.
World affairs and its Impact on India:
“Many of the ex-Baathists at Bucca, some of whom Baghdadi befriended, would later rise with him through the ranks of the Islamic State. “If there was no American prison in Iraq, there would be no [Islamic State] now,” recalled the inmate interviewed by The Guardian. “Bucca was a factory. It made us all. It built our ideology.” The prisoners dubbed the camp “The Academy,” and during his ten months in residence, Baghdadi was one of its faculty members.”
ISIS organization and the man behind it: IBRAHIM AWWAD IBRAHIM AL-BADRI, alias Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
IN recent times ISIS has gained enormous publicity. And there are some real existential issues at least in parts of middle east which could reach India through its western neighborhood countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan. It will be also prudent to remind that ISiS flags are been shown in the Kashmir valley and other parts of the country every now and then.
It is also known that the present european migration crisis (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32395181) that is taking place has its roots in the war torn country Syria which is the taken over by ISIS to a large extent especially the eastern part.
One of the root cause of the genesis of ISIS in the middle East is the coming of US troops in the region and then leaving. The ISIS got the opportunity in IRAQ due to weakness of the government after the United States left. The same situation is likely to happen in Afghanistan. Two of the country that can be worst affected by these are Pakistan and Afghanistan. But than we also live in the same neighborhood with porous borders. Thus the treat of ISIS poses great dangers to ourselves too.
ISIS may not last long and may weaken after a while just like the Al Qaida, which made one tremble in fear some years back. But until that stage comes, the country must be prepared for all eventualities that may happen.
The threat from ISIS is as much real as the rising of the sun. Therefore any one who is complacent about the ISIS threat to the country is not living in the present world that we live into. In order to understand the menace of ISIS, it is necessary that we understand the organization, its roots and its leader IBRAHIM AWWAD IBRAHIM AL-BADRI.
Ibrahim or Abu Bakr was born in 1971 in Samarra, an ancient Iraqi city on the eastern edge of the Sunni Triangle north of Baghdad. The son of a pious man who taught Quranic recitation in a local mosque, Ibrahim himself was withdrawn, taciturn, rnd, when he spoke, barely audible. Neighbors who knew him as a teenager remember him as shy and retiring. Even when people crashed into him during friendly soccer matches, his favorite sport, he remained stoic. But photos of him from those years capture another quality: a glowering intensity in the dark eyes beneath his thick, furrowed brow.
Early on, Ibrahim’s nickname was “The Believer.” When he wasn’t in school, he spent much of his time at the local mosque, immersed in his religious studies; and when he came home at the end of the day, according to one of his brothers, Shamsi, he was quick to admonish anyone who strayed from the strictures of Islamic law.
Now Ibrahim al-Badri is known to the world as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the ruler of the Islamic State or ISIS, and he has the power not just to admonish but to punish and even execute anyone within his territories whose faith is not absolute. His followers call him “Commander of the Believers,” a title reserved for caliphs, the supreme spiritual and temporal rulers of the vast Muslim empire of the Middle Ages. Though his own realm is much smaller, he rules millions of subjects. Some are fanatically loyal to him; many others cower in fear of the bloody consequences for defying his brutal version of Islam.
The marketing mantra of Aby Bakr is very simple but effective. Kidnap any non believer within his territory, behad him public, shoot a video and use You Tube to publicize the event. Nothing can be more heinous or fearful than this.
BAGHDADI’S LOWER MIDDLE-CLASS FAMILY was known for its piety but also for its proud lineage. His Sunni forefathers claimed to descend from the Prophet Muhammad through the Shiite leaders buried in Samarra’s golden-domed shrine.
When Baghdadi graduated from the University of Baghdad in 1996, he enrolled in the recently-established Saddam University for Islamic Studies where he studied for a master’s in Quranic recitation, his favorite subject. His family’s Baathist connections undoubtedly helped him get into the highly-selective graduate program. Baghdadi’s master’s thesis was a commentary on an obscure medieval text on Quranic recitation.
He received his master’s degree in 1999 and immediately enrolled in Saddam University’s doctoral program in Quranic studies.
Soon Baghdadi found himself in the company of the brotherhood family. Baghdadi threw himself into the writings of those Muslim Brothers who had embraced jihadism. Under their tutelage he grew increasingly impatient with the Brotherhood mainstream, which he felt was made up of “people of words, not action.” By 2000, Baghdadi was already spoiling for a fight.
LATE IN 2003, after the Americans had defeated and disbanded Saddam’s army, Baghdadi helped found Jaysh Ahl al-Sunna wa-l-Jamaah (Army of the People of the Sunna and Communal Solidarity), an insurgent group that fought U.S. troops and their local allies in northern and central Iraq.
Soon after, in February 2004, Baghdadi was arrested in Fallujah while visiting a friend who was on the American wanted list. He was transferred to a detention facility at Camp Bucca, a sprawling complex in southern Iraq. Prison files classified him as a “civilian detainee,” which meant his captors didn’t know he was a jihadist.
Baghdadi ingratiated himself with both the Sunni inmates and the Americans, looking for opportunities to negotiate with the camp authorities and mediate between rival groups of prisoners.
“Every time there was a problem in the camp,” recalls The Guardian’s source, “he was at the center of it. He wanted to be the head of the prison—and when I look back now, he was using a policy of conquer and divide to get what he wanted, which was status. And it worked.
Many of the 24,000 inmates at Bucca were Sunni Arabs who had served in Saddam’s military and intelligence services. When Saddam fell, so did they, a consequence of the American purge of the Baathists and the new ascendency of Iraq’s long-oppressed Shiite majority. If they weren’t jihadists when they arrived, many of them were by the time they left. Radical jihadist manifestos circulated freely under the eyes of the watchful but clueless Americans. Baghdadi would turn out to be the most explosive of jihadists, a man responsible for much of the conflagration that would engulf the region less than a decade later.
Many of the ex-Baathists at Bucca, some of whom Baghdadi befriended, would later rise with him through the ranks of the Islamic State. “If there was no American prison in Iraq, there would be no [Islamic State] now,” recalled the inmate interviewed by The Guardian. “Bucca was a factory. It made us all. It built our ideology.” The prisoners dubbed the camp “The Academy,” and during his ten months in residence, Baghdadi was one of its faculty members.
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