Current Affairs - National

Lok Sabha on September 15, 2020, passed Essential Commodities Act (Amendment) Bill, 2020. The bill allows the central government to regulate the supply of some of the food items only under the extraordinary circumstances which include natural calamity of grave nature, war, famine, and extraordinary price rise. The latest bill passed in Lok Sabha seeks to increase the competition in the agricultural sector and to increase farmers' income. It also aims to liberlise the regulatory system while also protecting the interests of the consumers.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will on Tuesday inaugurate and lay the foundation stone of 7 urban infrastructure projects worth Rs 541 crore in the poll-bound Bihar via video conference. Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar will also be present at the ceremony. The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) said on Monday that out of these projects, four are related to water supply, two to sewage treatment and one to riverfront development.

Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Rural Development and Pachayati Raj, Narendra Singh Tomar, said on Wednesday (8 September) that the government has set the target of covering 100 lakh hectares under micro-irrigation in five years' time.

PM Narendra Modi inaugurated the three petroleum sector projects in Bihar which cost more than Rs 900 crores. The projects include the Durgapur-Banka section of the Paradip-Haldia-Durgapur Pipeline Augmentation Project and two Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG) Bottling Plants in Banka and Champaran, according to news agency PTI.

Central Government has constituted an Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) to oversee the process of the corporatisation of the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB). Defence Minister Rajnath Singh is the chairman of this EGoM. As part of the "Aatmanirbhar Bharat" (self-reliant India) initiative, the government had announced on May 16 that it would improve the autonomy, accountability and efficiency in ordnance supplies by converting the OFB, which is a subordinate office of the defence ministry, into one or more government-owned corporate entities.