National
Performance Grading Index for Districts (PGI-D) for 2018-19 and 2019-20
⇒ The Department of School Education and Literacy (DoSE&L), Ministry of Education released the Performance Grading Index for Districts (PGI-D) for 2018-19 and 2019-20 on 27 June 2022.
- The PGI-D report assesses the performance of school education system at the district level by creating an index for comprehensive analysis.
- The PGI-D report Graded 725 districts in 2018-19 and 733 districts in 2019-20 across the States/UTs.
» The Indian Education System is one of the largest in the world with about 15 lakh schools, 97 lakh teachers, and nearly 26 crore students from varied socio-economic backgrounds.
» DoSE&L devised Performance Grading Index (PGI) for States and released report for the reference years 2017-18 to 2019-20.
Based on the success of State PGI, 83-indicator based PGI for District (PGI-D) has been designed to grade the performance of all districts in school education.
- The PGI-D is expected to help the state education departments to identify gaps at the district level and improve their performance in a decentralized manner.
- The indicator-wise PGI score shows the areas where a district needs to improve.
- The PGI-D will reflect the relative performance of all the districts in a uniform scale which encourages them to perform better.
PGI-D Structure:
The PGI-D structure comprises of total weight age of 600 points across 83 indicators, which are grouped under 6 categories:
- Outcomes
- Effective Classroom Transaction
- Infrastructure Facilities & Student’s Entitlements
- School Safety & Child Protection
- Digital Learning
- Governance Process
These categories are further divided into 12 domains:
- Learning Outcomes and Quality (LO)
- Access Outcomes (AO)
- Teacher Availability and Professional Development Outcomes (TAPDO)
- Learning Management (LM)
- Learning Enrichment Activities (LEA)
- Infrastructure, Facilities, Student Entitlements (IF&SE)
- School Safety and Child Protection (SS&CP)
- Digital Learning (DL)
- Funds convergence and utilization (FCV)
- Enhancing CRCs Performance (CRCP)
- Attendance Monitoring Systems (AMS)
- School Leadership Development (SLD)
PGI-D grades the districts into ten grades:
- Highest achievable Grade is Daksh, which is for Districts scoring more than 90% of the total points in that category or overall.
- The lowest grade in PGI-D is called Akanshi-3 which is for scores upto10% of the total points.
» Ultimate objective of PGI-D is to help the districts to priorities areas for intervention in school education and thus improve to reach the highest grade.
WCDM-DRR Excellence Award-2021
⇒ Indian Tsunami Early Warning Centre (ITEWC), ESSO-INCOIS (Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services) was conferred with “World Congress on Disaster Management- Disaster Risk Reduction (WCDM-DRR) Excellence Award-2021”.
Shri E Pattabhi Rama Rao, In-charge Director, Group Director-OMDA, INCOIS received the award from Shri G Kishan Reddy, Union Minister of Tourism, Culture and Development of Northeastern Region of India.
It was presented on 22 June, 2022 at WCDM Awards Ceremony function held at India International Centre, New Delhi.
About ESSO-INCOIS:
- ESSO-INCOIS was established as an autonomous body in 1999 under the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) and is a unit of the Earth System Science Organization (ESSO).
- ESSO- INCOIS is mandated to provide the best possible ocean information and advisory services to society, industry, government agencies and the scientific community through sustained ocean observations and constant improvements through systematic and focussed research.
New Director General of the National Investigation Agency
⇒ Former Punjab DGP Dinkar Gupta has been appointed as the new Director General of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on 23 June 2022.
Gupta is a 1987-batch IPS officer from Punjab. He will hold the post of NIA chief till March 31, 2024, that is the date of his retirement or till further orders, whichever comes earlier.
International
Commissioner of Historic England
⇒ Indian-origin architect and design advocate Nairita Chakraborty has been appointed to the prestigious role of Commissioner of Historic England, the public body championing the country’s historic environment and heritage.
- Chakraborty was a member of Historic England’s Advisory Committee. She started her new role as Commissioner from July 1, 2022 for a term of four years until June 2026.
About Nairita Chakraborty:
- Chakraborty, who grew up in Delhi and studied at the School of Planning and Architecture before moving to the UK, has over 16 years of experience in heritage, townscape and design.
- She has produced significant work on the adaptation and conversion of large and complex listed buildings, as well as town centre, public realm, and conservation area schemes.
- Some of her iconic projects in London include Alexandra Palace, Tottenham High Road, Holborn Town Hall as well as work on the Historic Dockyards of Middlesbrough.
About Historic England:
- Historic England is an executive non-departmental public body sponsored by the UK government’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and the Commission is its governing body which provides expert advice and guidance.
Important Day
International MSME Day 2022
⇒ International MSME Day is celebrated every year on 27 June under the auspices of the United Nations.
- World MSME Day serves to remind the Governments to maintain a business environment in which small rural, cottage and traditional industries also get the opportunity to flourish.
Theme:
The theme of International Micro-, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (MSMEs) Day 2022 was “Resilience and Rebuilding: MSMEs for Sustainable Development”.
This MSME Day 2022 hybrid event was focused on how purpose-driven MSMEs and social entrepreneurship are at the center of contributing to inclusive growth, combating inequalities and building back better and stronger, especially during challenging times.
Background:
- The United Nations General Assembly designated 27 June as “MSMEs Day” (A/RES/71/279) to raise awareness of the tremendous contributions of MSMEs to the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
- The Micro-, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (MSMEs) Day was recognized by the United Nations General Assembly in its 74th Plenary on April 6, 2017.