Category: State Current Affairs

Sahitya Akademi Awards 2025

Context: 

• On March 16, 2026, the Sahitya Akademi officially announced its prestigious annual awards for 2025, recognizing outstanding literary contributions across 24 Indian languages. 

Key Highlights

• • Total Awardees: 24 authors across 24 languages.
  • Award Package: An engraved copper plaque, a shawl, and a cash prize of ₹1,00,000.

• Field: Literature (across multiple genres).

Key Achievements:

• Diverse Genres: The 2025 honors celebrate a wide array of literary works, featuring 8 books of poetry, 4 novels, 6 short story collections, 2 essays, 1 literary criticism, 1 autobiography, and 2 memoirs.
• Notable English Winner: Former diplomat Navtej Sarna won the award in the English category for his acclaimed historical novel Crimson Spring.
• Notable Hindi Winner: Renowned author Mamta Kalia was honored in the Hindi category for her moving memoir Jeete Jee Allahabad.

Sahitya Akademi Awards:

• • Started: 1954.

• Event Category: India’s National Academy of Letters / 2nd highest literary honor (after the Jnanpith Award).

• • Specialty: Conferred annually to writers of the most outstanding original books published in the preceding five years.

• It covers 24 languages: the 22 languages listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution, plus English and Rajasthani.

• It acts as a major platform to promote regional literature and preserve India’s linguistic diversity.

Sahitya Akademi Award 2025 Award for Kannada

• Name – Amaresh Nugadoni
• Work – Dada Seerisu Tande(Short Stories)

Sakala scheme

News – 

• Karnataka Revenue Minister Krishna Byre Gowda announced that 99.35% of applications under the state’s Sakala scheme have been processed within the stipulated timeline during the current year.

Sakala Scheme

• • It is officially known as the Karnataka Guarantee of Services to Citizens Act, 2011.
  • Objective – to ensure the timely delivery of government services. 

• The name “Sakala” translates to “at the right time” or “in good time” in Kannada. 

Key Features of Sakala

• Time-Bound Delivery: Every service under the scheme has a specific, pre-defined time limit for completion.
• Guaranteed Service Number (GSC): Upon submitting an application, citizens receive a unique 15-digit GSC number.
• Tracking and Accountability: Citizens can use their GSC number to track the status of their application online via the Official Sakala Portal.
• Penalty for Delays: If a service is not provided within the stipulated time, the designated officer may be fined. Under the proposed Sakala 2.0, this penalty is approximately ₹250 per day of delay.
• Wide Coverage: The scheme covers over 725 services across various departments, including Revenue, Transport, Education, and Health.

Kalyana Karnataka

News – 

• Karnataka Economic Survey 2025-26 revealed that Kalaburagi occupies the lowest rung in the state’s per capita income (PCI) grid, underscoring the  widening regional disparity in the Kalyana Karnataka.

Region-Specific Initiatives

• These schemes are specifically targeted at the districts of Kalaburagi, Yadgir, Raichur, Bidar, Koppal, Vijayanagara, and Ballari: 
• Kalyana Patha: A ₹1,000 crore project to develop 1,150 km of rural roads across 38 assembly constituencies.
• Kalyana Karnataka Comprehensive Health Scheme: A ₹873 crore initiative that includes setting up a Cancer Diagnosis Unit in Bidar and a super-speciality hospital in Koppal.
• ELEVATE Kalyana Karnataka: A specialized startup funding program to encourage entrepreneurship within the region.
• Nanna Guruthu: Aimed at securing government documents for SC/ST rural residents via the DigiLocker app in 1,000 Gram Panchayats.
• Education & Skill Training: Includes the establishment of new nursing colleges in Yalburga, Jevargi, and Yadgir, plus skill training for unemployed youth aged 18 to 35. 

Major Welfare & State Schemes

• Residents in this region also have access to Karnataka’s flagship “Five Guarantee” schemes and other departmental programs: 

Five Guarantees: 

• Gruha Lakshmi: ₹2,000 monthly for women heads of households.
• Gruha Jyothi: Free electricity for households using up to 200 units.
• Anna Bhagya: 10 kg of free food grains for BPL families.
• Shakti: Free bus travel for women within the state.
• Yuva Nidhi: Unemployment stipend for graduates and diploma holders.
• Ganga Kalyana Scheme: Provides borewells, pumps, and electrification to small and marginal farmers from SC/ST and minority communities.
• Udyogini Scheme: Offers up to 50% subsidy on loans for women entrepreneurs to start small businesses

UDAN scheme

News – 

• Karnataka’s Infrastructure Development Minister M.B. Patil recently stated that airports in tier-II cities are not financially viable after the three-year incentive period under the UDAN scheme.

UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik) scheme 

• Launched in – October 2016

• • It is India’s flagship regional connectivity program designed to make air travel affordable and accessible for the common citizen. 

• The scheme focuses on connecting underserved and unserved airports in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities. 

Key Features of UDAN

• Affordable Fares: Airfares are capped for approximately 50% of the seats on each flight. For example, a one-hour flight (~500 km) is capped at roughly ₹2,500 (subject to indexation).
• Viability Gap Funding (VGF): To encourage airlines to fly less profitable regional routes, the government provides financial subsidies (VGF) to cover the gap between operating costs and capped fare revenue.

Eva Nammava Eva Nammava Bill

News – 

• The Eva Nammava Eva Nammava Bill—officially titled the Karnataka Freedom of Choice in Marriage and Prevention and Prohibition of Crimes in the Name of Honour and Tradition Act, 2026—is a landmark piece of legislation passed by the Karnataka State Legislature in March 2026.  

Eva Nammava Eva Nammava Bill

• Mandate – It is specifically designed to prevent “honour killings” and protect the freedom of adults to choose their life partners without interference from family, caste, or community bodies. 

Key Features of the Bill

• Right to Choose: Guarantees that every adult has the autonomy to choose their partner. It explicitly states that no family member, caste group, or community body has the authority to interfere in this decision.
• Broad Definition of Crimes: Beyond physical violence, the law criminalises social and economic boycotts, psychological terror (such as performing death rites for living persons), and forcing separation.

Institutional Support:

• Eva Nammava Vedike: A district-level platform or committee (including retired judges and police officers) to solemnise marriages and provide counselling.
• Safe Houses & Helplines: Mandates 24/7 helplines and state-funded safe houses in every district for threatened couples.
• Rapid Response: Police are required to provide protection within six hours of receiving a complaint.
• Strict Penalties: Offences are classified as cognizable and non-bailable. Punishment for honour killings includes a minimum of five years in prison, while causing hurt can lead to 2–3 years of rigorous imprisonment.

Responsible AI Committee (Kris Gopalakrishnan committee)

News –

• The Government of Karnataka has constituted a Committee on Responsible Artificial Intelligence (AI), chaired by Kris Gopalakrishnan.

Objectives

• to develop a framework for safe, ethical, and transparent AI adoption in public services, according to this Facebook post. 
• The panel, comprising industry experts and officials, met in Bengaluru to discuss AI ethics, risk classification, and data privacy to ensure accountability in AI systems. 

Key Aspects of the Responsible AI Committee:

• Mandate: Develop a policy and implementation roadmap within 90 days for responsible AI adoption in government.
• Focus Areas: Establish AI principles, create risk classifications for government AI applications, and set up guidelines for data governance, privacy, and cybersecurity.
• Committee Structure: Led by Infosys Co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan, with the Managing Director of the Karnataka Innovation and Technology Society (KITS) serving as the Member Secretary.
• Key Sectors: The framework will cover AI deployment in citizen-centric areas like healthcare, education, welfare delivery, and policing

QpiAI Indus

News – 

• The Karnataka government has installed the QpiAI Indus, a 25-qubit superconducting quantum computing system, at the Quantum Computing Centre of Excellence (QCCE) located at IIIT-Dharwad.

Objectives and Usage

• Academic Integration: Used for curriculum development, faculty-led research in quantum algorithms, and hands-on student training.
• Commercial Access: The centre offers Quantum Computing as a Service (QCaaS), allowing enterprises to experiment with use cases in logistics, finance, and pharmaceutical discovery.
• Regional Strategy: Part of the Karnataka Quantum Roadmap, which aims to establish a $20 billion quantum economy by 2035. 

Additional Information –  Quantum computing 

• It is a new way for computers to process information using the strange rules of physics that govern tiny particles like atoms and electrons. 
• While regular computers (like your phone or laptop) use bits to store information as either a 0 or a 1 (like a light switch being on or off), quantum computers use qubits
• Quantum computers are expected to solve massive problems that would take today’s fastest supercomputers thousands of years. 

Applications – 

• Medicine: They can simulate how new drugs will interact with the human body at a molecular level.
• Cybersecurity: They could potentially crack almost all current internet encryption, which is why experts are already building “quantum-proof” security.
• Climate & Energy: They can help design better batteries or find ways to remove carbon from the air by simulating complex chemical reactions

Shakuntala Grants on International Women’s Day 2026

News – 

• On International Women’s Day 2026, Bengaluru-based Pixxel launched the Shakuntala Grants under its new Shakuntala Initiative, 
• It provides micro-grants for women researchers focused on climate resilience and environmental studies. 
• The program supports field studies, data collection, and equipment purchases for early-career researchers. 

Key details of the Shakuntala Grants and Initiative:

• Purpose: To address funding gaps for women researchers and foster long-term STEM community building.
• Partnership: The program is in collaboration with Escape Velocity Grants.
• Target Areas: Research projects related to climate change, environment, and earth observation.
• Inspiration: The initiative honors the first Pixxel Pathfinder satellite (Shakuntala) and the famous female mathematician, Shakuntala Devi

Multi-purpose indoor sports complex at V.C. Farm in Mandya

News – 

• Union Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy, laid the foundation stone for a ₹14-crore multi-purpose indoor sports complex at V.C. Farm in Mandya, Karnataka, on March 14, 2026. 

Project Details

• Location: The facility is being constructed within the campus of the University of Agricultural Sciences at V.C. Farm.
• Funding: Sanctioned under the Government of India’s Khelo India scheme to strengthen grassroots sports infrastructure.

Additional Information – Khelo India programme.

• Launched in 2018, 

• Financing – Central Sector Scheme

• It is aimed at reviving the sports culture at the grassroots level. 
• It is implemented by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports. 

Core Objectives & Features

• Twin Goals: To achieve mass participation and promote excellence in sports.

• Talent Identification: Promising athletes are identified and provided with an annual financial assistance of ₹5 lakh for 8 years.
• Structure: It merged previous schemes like the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Abhiyan (RGKA), Urban Sports Infrastructure Scheme (USIS), and National Sports Talent Search Scheme (NSTSS).

Karnataka’s ELEVATE

News – 

• The share of women-led startups in Karnataka’s ELEVATE grant-in-aid program has seen a steady rise, growing from 16.96% in 2017 to nearly 43% in 2025

ELEVATE 

• • It is a flagship initiative by the Department of Electronics, IT, Bt, and S&T, Government of Karnataka.
  • It is  designed to identify and nurture innovative early-stage startups. 

• It provides comprehensive support, including grant-in-aid funding, mentoring, and access to venture capital. 

Key Funding & Support Tracks

• ELEVATE (General): Offers a one-time grant of up to ₹50 Lakhs to help startups develop prototypes, conduct market trials, and scale their business.
• ELEVATE Unnati: Specifically targets startups led by SC/ST entrepreneurs, providing up to ₹50 Lakhs in seed funding to foster social inclusion.
• ELEVATE NxT (Deeptech): A flagship program under the LEAP framework focused on scaling high-potential Deeptech and AI startups.
• ELEVATE WomEN: Dedicated to accelerating women-led startups
• ELEVATE Minorities: A specialized track to support and fund entrepreneurs from minority communities.