Delhi, Chennai among world’s most surveilled cities

•In a report by Forbes India, New Delhi and Chennai have ranked first and third respectively from India on the world’s most surveilled cities. New Delhi has 1,826 cameras per square mile while Chennai has 609 cameras per square mile.

•The Public Works Department (PWD) installs CCTV cameras in Delhi. Over 1,05,000 CCTV cameras have been installed in Delhi by December 2019, stated PWD.

•London ranked second most surveilled city in the world with 1,138 cameras per square mile. Shenzhen ranked fourth with 520 cameras per square mile. Mumbai with 157 cameras ranked 18 on the list.

Finance Minister launches EASE 4.0

Key Facts

• It is a simplified, tech-enabled and collaborative banking.
• On the occasion, finance minister launched the annual report for PSB Reforms Agenda EASE 3.0 for the year 2020-21 and also witnessed the awards ceremony to felicitate the best performing banks on EASE 3.0 Banking Reforms Index.

Best performing banks on EASE 3.0

• SBI, Bank of Baroda (BoB), and Union Bank of India (UBI) won the awards for best performing banks on the basis of EASE index.
• Indian Bank won the award for best improvement from baseline performance.
• SBI, BoB, UBI, Punjab National Bank and Canara Bank also won the top awards across different themes of PSB Reforms Agenda EASE 3.0.

Reforms under EASE 4.0

EASE 4.0 reforms look after four key initiatives to be adopted by public sector banks:

1. Smart lending backed by analytics
2. 24×7 banking with resilient technology & cloud-based IT systems
3. data enabled agriculture financing and
4. Collaboration with the financial ecosystem.

How PSB will enable smart lending?

In order to enable the smart lending under EASE 4.0, PSBs are required to design and improve performance of loan initiation processes by simplifying it on the basis of standard operating procedures and time-bound actions. They are also required to introduce end-to-end digitised loans for new customers.  They will have to broaden customer base and increase credit off-take by means of analytics and technology-driven credit offers.

Stockholm World Water Week 2021

Key Points

• Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) was the only civic body from India that was invited at the panel discussion on the topic “Zero Liquid Discharge Cities”.
• According to City municipal commissioner, Banchhanidhi Pani, by 2030 city would be able to reusing 100% of sewage water after treatment.

Theme of the SWWW 2021

The Stockholm World Water Week was held under the theme: ‘Building Resilience Faster’.

Why only SMC was invited?

Only SMC was invited to discuss at SWWW because, Surat’s achievement in treating sewage water and reusing it has been recognized by world’s top institute in water governance. Surat treats about 1,400 MLD sewage water out of which 320 MLD (33%) is reused.

About World Water Week

WWW is a leading annual event that is organised to held discussions on global water issues. It is organized by SIWI since 1991. The weeklong event is attended by some 4,000 participants from 135 countries.

How WWW is held?

• Under the WWW, many sessions are convened by leading international organizations on different topics related to water, ranging from food security & health to energy, agriculture, biodiversity, and climate crisis.
• It also includes prestigious international competition called ‘Stockholm Junior Water Prize’ and award ceremony for Stockholm Water Prize.

Water+ city

Surat city was recently awarded a ‘Water+ certification’ under the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM). It was the first city from Gujarat to get recognition. It was awarded by the ministry of housing and urban Affairs (MoHUA) in the field of adopting best practices in waste water management.