Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, is set to visit Uttar Pradesh on October 20, 2021 to attend Abhidhamma Day Programme.
This airport has been built at the estimated cost of Rs. 260 crores. It will be facilitating domestic as well as international pilgrims to visit the Mahaparinirvana sthal of Lord Buddha. Inauguration of the airport is an attempt of connecting Buddhist pilgrimage holy sites from across the world. Airport will serve the adjoining districts of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. It is an important step of boosting investment & employment opportunities in this region.
Abhidhamma Day symbolises the end of three-month rainy retreat called “Varshavaas or Vassa”. This rainy retreat is observed by the Buddhist Monks. During this period, monks stay at one place in vihara & monastery for offering prayer.
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. have launched a new server chip on the basis of advanced 5-nanometer technology.
Alibaba, in the backdrop of its Annual Cloud Summit, highlighted that silicon will be put for using its own data centres in near future. It will not be sold for commercial purposes. The annual cloud summit will be held in Hangzhou.
Alibaba has launched new server chip in the aftermath of increasing cloud services amid the covid-19 pandemic. Tech giants across the world are seeking more powerful and energy efficient semiconductors for gaining edge.
This server chip is the most advanced chip by a Chinese firm. With this launch, Alibaba has joined in global rivals like Amazon & Google in gradually replacing silicon from traditional chipmakers such as Advanced micro–Devices Inc. and Intel Corp.
Under the new initiative called “Gen-Next Democratic Network” initiative, India is set to host young leaders aged under 35.
The inaugural batch will comprise of leaders from countries like Bangladesh, Bangladesh, Chile, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Japan and Zambia. Structure comprises of countries representing regions and continents such as South East Asia and Africa.
This event will be inaugurated by the speaker of Lok Sabha, Om Birla. The event will take place from November 25.
Through this event, organisers are approaching and trying to build relations with Gen-next of 75 democracies. These people will become future leader of their respective countries. This, through this event, they will get a comprehensive idea of rich democratic culture in India. They will also go to at least one state with ICCR.
This initiative has been launched by in the light that, India has been taking a lead role in the area of geo politics of democracies.
The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) is set to host the ‘Aadhaar Hackathon 2021’ from October 28, 2021.
Aadhaar Hackathon 2021 has been themed on two topics:
To solve these challenges, UIDAI is reaching out to all engineering colleges through innovative technological solutions.
One can register for the hackathon by visiting “hackathon.uidai.gov.in” website.
UIDAI will also reward winners under each theme through prize money and other lucrative benefits.
UIDAI is a statutory authority which was established under the provisions of the Aadhaar Act 2016 on July 12, 2016. It was established under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). It was created to issue Unique Identification numbers (UID), dubbed as “Aadhaar”, to all the residents of India.
India, Israel, United States and United Arab Emirates (UAE) are ready to build on momentum created by “Abraham Accords” by holding the first meeting of their foreign ministers on October 18, 2021.
India, Israel and the UAE have also stepped-up a trilateral cooperation, especially in trade and investment, after US negotiated for Abraham Accords in August 2020 between two West Asian countries. Under this partnership, an Israel-based company will produce a robotic solar cleaning technology in India which will be used for a project in the UAE.
Abraham Accords are a joint statement between Israel, the US and the UAE. It was signed on August 13, 2020. The term was also used to refer to normalisation agreements between Israel & UAE and Israel & Bahrain collectively. It is the first public normalization of relations between any Arab country and Israel since 1994. The accords have been named after Abraham, emphasizing the shared belief between Judaism and Islam. Both of them are Abrahamic religions which strictly support monotheistic worship of the God of Abraham.
Government think tank, NITI Aayog, launched the Geospatial Energy Map of India on October 18, 2021.
This Geospatial Energy Map of India provides a holistic picture of all energy resources like oil & gas wells, petroleum refineries, conventional power plants, coal fields and coal blocks.
The Geospatial Energy Map of India has been launched by NITI Aayog in collaboration with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). Energy ministries of the Government of India has also provided its support in developing this platform.
This platform has been launched with the aim of integrating energy data scattered across several organizations. It will present consolidated data in visually appealing graphical manner.
The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) has dedicated Rs 1000 crores fund to provide credit guarantees to around 10,000 farmer producer organisations (FPOs).
Central government had launched a new central sector scheme called “Formation and promotion of 10000 FPOs” in February 2021. This scheme was launched with a clear strategy and committed resources for promoting 10000 new FPOs in India. Rs 6865 has been allocated to this scheme.
It is only the second such Trust formed in agriculture and allied sector in order to provide credit guarantee. Credit guarantee offered by means of Trust will help in enhancing the credit worthiness of FPOs. It will also facilitate for cost-effective production and productivity which in turn will led to higher net income for the farmers who are members of FPOs.
As per Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, FPOs will be developed in produce clusters. While agricultural produce and horticultural produce are grown to leverage economies of scale. It will also help in improving market access for members.
India and Israel have agreed to resume the negotiations on Free Trade Agreement (FTA) from November 2021.
The bilateral relations between India and Israel are extensive. Both the countries share military, economic and strategic relationship. Israel is represented by an embassy in New Delhi while consulates in Mumbai & Bangalore. India has set up its embassy in Tel Aviv.
India is the largest buyer of military equipment from Israel while Israel is the second-largest supplier of military equipment to India following Russia. In between 1999 to 2009, military business between both the countries was around US$9 billion. Military and strategic ties also extend to joint military training and intelligence-sharing on terrorist groups.
India is the third-largest Asian trade partner of Israel, as of 2014. Overall, India is tenth-largest trade partner of Israel. The bilateral trade between both the countries stands at $4.52 billion, excluding the military sales. Both the countries are negotiating an extensive bilateral free-trade agreement which focuses on areas like biotechnology, information technology and agriculture.
Kerala Government has planned to start an online platform to market and deliver products manufactured by ‘Micro, Small and Medium production units including Kudumbashree.
The Centre had started the PMFME scheme in collaboration with the State governments in order to incentivise food processing industries. This scheme seeks to provide technical, financial, and business assistance to the small food processing enterprises.
This scheme was started in order to identify one product from each and encourage its sale. It comprises of procurement of raw materials using common facilities in order to produce and help in widening its market for the product. Under this scheme, food processing ministry also helps the entrepreneurs for building logistic support and developing ‘brand building’ for these products.
Commodore Amit Rastogi (Retd), after being into service to Indian Navy for 34 years, has taken charge as Chairman & Managing Director of National Research Development Corporation. He took charges on October 18, 2021.
NRDC was a non-departmental government body. It was established by the British Government for transferring technology from public sector to private sector. This body was established in the year 1948 by Attlee’s Labour government to meet the perceived need at the time in order to exploit several products that Defence Research Establishment had developed during World War II. It was set up by Board of Trade in accordance with the Development of Inventions Act 1948. Lord Giffard was its first managing director. In the year 1981, NRDC was combined with National Enterprise Board (NEB) to form British Technology Group (BTG).
The Delhi government floated tenders for developing a portal called “Rojgar Bazaar 2.0” on October 14, 2021.
Delhi government had launched the ‘Rojgar Bazaar 1.0’ in August 2020. It turned out to be “a lifeline for small businesses and unemployed youth of Delhi”. On this portal, 10 lakh jobs and 14 lakh job-seekers have already been advertised.
This portal will bring all the services related to skill training, career guidance and job matching on this first-of-its kind digital platform. Government has also planned to institutionalise physical centres in order to increase access to this portal because a large number of unorganised workers cannot access digital platform. It will also provide AI-based employer verification for matching jobs. It will also provide other critical services like skilling, career guidance, skill credentialing as well as automated analytics services. All these services will help in enhancing the ability of job seekers to gain meaningful livelihoods.