UGC unveils draft norms to allow foreign universities to set up campuses in India

UGC unveils draft norms to allow foreign universities to set up campuses in India

• The University Grants Commission (UGC) has announced draft norms for facilitating foreign universities and educational institutions to set up campuses in India which allow them autonomy in determining fees, as well as a 90-day approval process. The final norms will be notified by the end of the month after feedback from all stakeholders.
• A foreign university with a rank among the top 500 global rankings or a foreign educational institution of repute in home jurisdiction can apply to the UGC to set up a campus in India.
• The application will be considered by a standing committee appointed by the UGC which will submit its recommendations within 45 days after examining the institution’s credibility, programmes offered, their potential to strengthen educational opportunities in India, proposed academic infrastructure. 
• Foreign higher education institutions will also be allowed cross-border movement of funds and maintenance of Foreign Currency Accounts, mode of payments, remittance, repatriation, and sale of proceeds, as per the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) 1999 and its Rules and an audit report will have to be submitted to the UGC.

Ram Temple will open on Jan. 1, 2024: Shah

• Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Thursday announced the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya will be ready by January 1, 2024, the year the Lok Sabha elections will be held.
• This is being seen as an indication that Ram Mandir, a plank raked up by the saffron camp since 1990 when BJP leader L K Advani started out on a Rath Yatra to focus on the issue, may again be one of the cornerstones of BJP’s campaign in the next general election.
• The Rath Yatra also saw the spawning of a movement calling for the destruction of the 16th-century Mosque in Ayodhya, which some believed was the site of a palace where Lord Ram was born. It culminated in the public destruction of the mosque by saffron brigade volunteers in December 1992.
• The prime minister performed the "Bhoomi puja" for the construction of the temple on August 5, 2020.

Odisha CM Patnaik inaugurates country's biggest hockey stadium in Rourkela

• Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik inaugurated the newly-built Birsa Munda International Hockey Stadium, the world's largest hockey stadium at Rourkela, the steel city of Odisha in Sundargarh district. 
• Built at a cost of Rs. 261 crores, the stadium, named after tribal freedom fighter Birsa Munda, has been constructed within a record period of 15 months.
• The 15th edition of FIH Men's Hockey World Cup will be played here and at Kalinga Stadium of Bhubaneswar in Odisha from January 13.
• The CM announced that if the Indian team wins the World Cup, each hockey player will be given Rs 1 crore. He said this will be Odisha's biggest gift to the country. The state has been the sponsor for Indian hockey for ten years.

Odisha wins World Habitat Award 2023 for its JAGA Mission

• Odisha won the UN-Habitat’s World Habitat Awards 2023 for Jaga Mission. The awards recognise and highlight innovative, outstanding and revolutionary housing ideas, projects and programmes from across the world. 
• The Jaga mission is the land titling and slum upgrading program that aims at empowering the lives of slum dwellers.
• Jaga mission is the world’s largest land titling and slum upgrading program which aims at empowering the lives of slum dwellers. 
• The Government of Odisha has set itself the ambitious target of becoming the first slum-free state in India and is leading the Jaga Mission programme to upgrade all of the state’s 2,919 slums. 
• In the last 05 years of the initiative, 1,75,000 families have been granted land tenure security. 100% households in 2,724 slums have been provided with pipe water connections, 707 slums transformed fully into Liveable Habitats, 100% households in 666 slums have individual toilets, and 8 cities have become slum-free.

Election Commission appointed Maithili Thakur as Bihar’s state icon

• Folk singer Maithili Thakur was appointed the state icon for Bihar by the Election Commission. The singer will create awareness among the voters for their participation in the electoral process. 
• This recognition will give her (Maithili) more impetus to spread Bihar’s folk music across continents and generate awareness about the importance of participating in the electoral process.
• Maithili Thakur has rendered traditional folk songs of Bihar in Maithili, Bhojpuri and Hindi. She has been trained in Indian classical and folk music, was recently selected for the Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar of the Sangeet Natak Akademi for her contribution to the folk music of Bihar for 2021.