- Navratna Status: The government categorizes all Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) into three categories, namely Maharatna, Navratna, and Miniratna. To get Navratna status, the PSU should be a Miniratna-I, Schedule ‘A’ company, should have obtained an ‘excellent’ or ‘very good’ MoU rating in three of the last five years, and must have a composite score of 60 in six performance indicators. For a company to achieve Navratna status, it must report a net profit of more than Rs 5,000 crore for three consecutive years, and maintain an average annual turnover of Rs 25,000 crore for three years, or have an annual average net worth of over Rs 15,000 crore for three years. Navratna PSUs have a comparative advantage over other companies as they have been granted financial independence to invest up to Rs 1,000 crore without seeking approval from the Union government. The board of the ‘Navratna’ companies has autonomy to incur capital expenditure on the purchase of new items or for replacement without any monetary ceiling and to enter into technology joint ventures or strategic alliances, among others.
The status gives the Board of Directors of these CPSEs the power to allow mergers and acquisitions in India and abroad. However, they need an approval from the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) to make investments abroad.
- Airports Economic Regulatory Authority (AERA): AERA is a statutory body constituted under the Airports Economic Regulatory Authority of India Act, 2008.The AERA regulates tariffs and other charges (development fee and passenger service fee) for aeronautical services (air traffic management, landing, and parking of aircraft, ground handling services) at major airports. The 2008 Act designates an airport as a major airport if it has an annual passenger traffic of at least 15 lakh. An amendment to the act in 2019 increased this threshold to 35 lakh annual passengers. For the remaining airports, tariffs are determined by the Airports Authority of India (AAI).AERA is an independent economic regulator that aims to create a level playing field, foster healthy competition amongst all major airports, encourage investment in airport facilities, and regulate tariffs for aeronautical services. Headquarters: Delhi
- Poorvottar Sampark Setu portal: It is a powerful tool designed to streamline and enhance monitoring of Fortnightly visits of Union Ministers to NER. The dashboard provides valuable insights and graphical information about State-wise/ District-wise visits to the North Eastern Region by Union Ministers to be used by all the stake holders in one place. The portal generates a curated list of Ministers who can be nominated for visit to NER in the upcoming months. After the visit, the Minister can submit their tour reports along with their recommendations online. MDoNER can forward the recommendations to respective line Ministries/Departments/State Governments for quick action, after analyzing the same. The Portal generates the summary report on the visits by a single click.
- One CGIAR global initiative: Recently, the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) joined the One Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) global initiative. It aims to build a unified approach to transforming food, land, and water systems to address the challenges posed by climate crisis. This initiative involves the CGIAR System Organisation and 12 One CGIAR research centres.
The CGIAR is a publicly-funded network of agrifood systems research centres, works for transforming food, land, and water systems in a climate crisis. It is working in over 80 countries.
