PM Modi lays foundation stone of Light House projects (LHPs)

January 3, 2021

1. PM Modi lays foundation stone of Light House projects (LHPs)

Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone of Light House projects (LHPs) at six sites across six States through video conference on 1st January 2021.
The LHPs will be implemented at Indore (Madhya Pradesh), Rajkot (Gujarat), Chennai (Tamil Nadu), Ranchi (Jharkhand), Agartala (Tripura) and Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh).
The project is being constructed under the Global Housing Technology Challenge (GHTC)-India. It has been conceptualised by the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.
Under the programme, over 1,000 houses would be built in each of the six cities in 12 months along with allied infrastructure facilities.

The Central government has further extended the deadline to file an income tax return (ITR) for FY 2019-20 by 10 days, up to January 10, 2021. Earlier this deadline was December 31, 2020.
This extension of the deadline is for those individuals whose accounts are not required to be audited and who usually file their income tax return using ITR-1 or ITR-4 forms, as applicable. This is the third extension of the deadline to file a tax return.
The first extension was given from the normal deadline of July 31 to November 30, 2020, and then to December 31, 2020.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has signed a $231 million loan with the Government of India to augment electricity generation capacity in the state of Assam.
This is the third tranche loan for the ‘Assam Power Sector Investment Programme’ that was approved by the ADB Board in July 2014.
Under the project, 120 megawatts (MW) hydroelectric power plant would be constructed. The programme focuses on enhancing the capacity and efficiency of the energy generation and distribution systems in Assam to improve the availability of electricity service to end-users.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Government of India have signed a $10 million project readiness financing (PRF).
This agreement aims to help finance piloting activities, and design and capacity building for an ensuing project that aims to expand horticulture production and farm household income in the hill state of Himachal Pradesh.
The PRF project will support advance actions to achieve a high level of project readiness through detailed design activities, capacity building of state-level agencies, and creating an enabling environment for subtropical horticulture development in the state.
The PRF project aims to ensure implementation readiness with prior testing of new production technologies and marketing systems so that the ensuing project is cost-effective and gets completed in a timely manner to enhance farm profitability.

Umesh Sinha has been named as the deputy election commissioner in the Election Commission of India.
Sinha, a 1986-batch IAS officer (retired) is at present serving as secretary-general in the commission.
The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet cleared the extension in the term of reemployment of Sinha as deputy election commissioner on contract basis for a period of six months beyond December 31, 2020.

The Central Government has approved the extension of the term of ISRO Chairman K Sivan, for a period of one year. He was due to retire on January 14, 2021.
Sivan will now continue as ISRO Chairman and Secretary, Department of Space up to January 14, 2022. He joined ISRO in 1982, has been the chairman of the space agency since January 2018.
ISRO chief has imminent knowledge in Aerospace engineering, Space Transportation Systems Engineering, Launch vehicles, mission simulation software design and many other operations related to Space programs.

Soma Mondal has taken over as the new Chairman of Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) with effect from January 01, 2021.
She is the first-ever women-head of the body. She replaces Anil Kumar Chaudhary, who superannuated on 31 December 2020. She joined SAIL in 2017 as the director (commercial).