Table of Contents
National
Ministry of Culture organizes PAN-India program “Jharokha”
Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Textiles are organizing a program called “Jharokha-Compendium of Indian handicraft/ handloom, art and culture” to celebrate the traditional Indian handicrafts, handlooms, and art & culture.
To begin with, the first event under this celebration has been organized in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh at Rani Kamlapati Railway Station, on March 08, 2022, which also marks International Women’s Day.
Jharokha is a PAN India program that will be held at 16 locations in 13 states and UTs, as part of the Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav. The event in Bhopal will celebrate womanhood and the contribution of women in the field of art, craft, and culture.
Kamlapati Railway Station is named after the brave and fearless Queen Kamlapati of the Gond kingdom of Madhya Pradesh.
Aarushi Verma named to represent India at Climate Force Antarctica Expedition
A national-level shooter and an environmentalist hailing from Delhi, Aarushi Verma has been selected to represent India at the 2041 Climate Force Antarctica Expedition which is set to be held in March 2022.
She is a national-level shooter in Pistol and trap shooting and a State & Northern India Champion & National medalist, and an active environmentalist. She will be fully supported and sponsored by The Hans Foundation.
2041 Climate Force Antarctica Expedition is a global initiative to train and develop the next generation of sustainability champions and to help corporations with their sustainability solutions. This carbon negative’ expedition also aims to inspire, develop and train the next generation of leaders to promote a more sustainable future. This also includes the ‘Leadership on the edge’ program.
2041 Climate Force is derived from the year which marks the Madrid Protocol protecting Antarctica from exploitation would come up for debate, revision, and/ or possible cancellation. The participants of the expedition will graduate as ‘Ambassadors for the Antarctic’.
Haryana govt announced Matrushakti Udaymita Scheme
Haryana government has announced Matrushakti Udaymita Scheme to provide support to women entrepreneurs, on International Women’s Day.
Under the scheme, the women whose family annual income is less than 5 lakh rupees based on Parivar Pehchan Patra (PPP) verified data, will be provided access to soft loans by financial institutions to the extent of 3 lakh rupees.
Subsequently, the interest subvention of 7% will also be provided for three years through the Haryana Women Development Corporation.
Useful notes for all competitive exams:
- Haryana Capital: Chandigarh;
- Haryana Governor: Bandaru Dattatreya;
- Chief Minister of Haryana: Manohar Lal Khattar.
Sikkim State Government will launch Aama Yojna & Bahini Scheme
Chief Minister of Sikkim, Prem Singh Tamang has announced that the State Government will soon implement ‘Aama Yojana, a scheme for helping non-working mothers & ‘Bahini Scheme’ benefitting girl students of the state. The complete details of the Aama Yojna and Bahini Yojana are given below.
Aama Yojna scheme aims to inculcate the habit of saving among non-working mothers in the state and hence the Government will provide them Rs. 20,000 each in their bank accounts annually. The scheme covers only those whose names are enrolled in the electoral roll of the state and a sum of Rs. 100 crores have been allocated for it in the budget.
Bahini Scheme is to reduce the dropout rate of girl students due to the lack of accessibility/availability of Sanitary Napkins & also to ensure menstrual health and hygiene. Under this scheme, over 18,000 girl students who study in class 9 and above are provided with free sanitary napkins in the state.
Useful notes for all competitive exams:
- Sikkim Capital: Gangtok;
- Sikkim Governor: Ganga Prasad;
- Sikkim Chief minister: Prem Singh Tamang.
International
Iran successfully test-fire second military satellite Noor-2
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) successfully launched a military satellite, Noor-2, into orbit at an altitude of 500 kilometers (311 miles) from the earth.
This is the second military satellite launched by the Islamic Republic. The first military satellite, Noor, was launched in April 2020 at an orbit of 425km (265 miles) above the earth’s surface. Noor means light in the Persian language.
Putting the second satellite in space would be a major advance for Iran’s military, raising concerns about the country’s nuclear and missile programs. The three-stage Qased, or “Messenger”, the carrier launched the Noor 2, from the Shahroud spaceport.
Useful notes for all competitive exams:
- Iran Capital: Tehran;
- Iran President: Ebrahim Raisi;
- Iran Currency: Iranian rial.
Russia is now the world’s most sanctioned country in 2022
Russia has become the most sanctioned country in the world, due to its invasion of Ukraine, according to a New York-based sanctions watchlist site Castellum.
Russia faced 2,778 new sanctions since February 22, 2022, led by the US and European nations, bringing the total sanctions to 5,530. The country already had 2,754 sanctions in place before February 22.
Countries across the world are putting sanctions on Russia to stop its invasion of Ukraine. Russia has now surpassed countries like Iran and North Korea in terms of a number of sanctions. Before this, Iran was the most sanctioned country, facing 3,616 sanctions against it over the last decade, while Syria and North Korea have 2,608 and 2,077 sanctions, respectively.
Useful notes for all competitive exams:
- Russia Capital: Moscow;
- Russia President: Vladimir Putin;
- Russia Currency: Russian Ruble.
Business
Google Cloud and Flipkart enters a strategic partnership 2022
Flipkart and Google Cloud have formed a multi-year strategic agreement to assist Flipkart to accelerate its innovation and cloud strategy. Flipkart’s next phase of expansion will be aided by this alliance, which will help it achieve its goal of enrolling India’s next 200 million buyers and lakhs of vendors. The deal value was kept opaque by the companies.
Flipkart will be able to provide robust app access and performance even during peak purchasing seasons with increased traffic by leveraging Google Cloud’s secure and scalable global infrastructure and powerful networking technologies.
Flipkart will also use Google Cloud to accelerate the creation of new products, boosting its expansion into India’s Tier 2 and Tier 3 markets.
Flipkart will use Google Cloud‘s superior data analytics and machine learning capabilities to improve the efficiency of its data platform.
This will allow the organization to better evaluate traffic and transactional data, as well as gain valuable real-time insights into client purchasing and shopping patterns.
This would also aid in the identification of trends and patterns associated with growing demand, as well as the creation of more personalized recommendations to improve the customer experience.
HDFC Mutual Fund Launches #LaxmiForLaxmi
HDFC Mutual Fund has launched a women-led financial empowerment initiative ‘LaxmiForLaxmi’ which will connect women investors to a woman financial expert near them through a unique missed call service.
The female financial expert will guide and address the queries of the woman investor. Through this initiative, HDFC Mutual Fund aims to support women investors in their journey to become financially independent while making mutual fund investments accessible to them.
The initiative is based on the fact that it is easier for a person to understand a concept when it is taught by someone who comprehends them and is like-minded. This is a financial empowerment campaign for women through which the fund house aims to support women investors in becoming financially independent while making mutual fund investments more accessible to them.
Useful notes for all competitive exams:
- HDFC Bank Headquarters: Mumbai;
- HDFC Bank Founded: August 1994;
- HDFC Bank CEO: Sashidhar Jagdishan;
- HDFC Bank Chairman: Atanu Chakraborty;
- HDFC Bank Tagline: We understand your world.
Banking
RBI launches UPI123pay for feature phones and DigiSaathi 2022
Reserve Bank of India has launched two initiatives related to digital payments. One is UPI123pay- which provides a UPI payment facility on feature phones and the second is “DigiSaathi” which is a 24×7 Helpline for Digital Payments.
The UPI123pay will provide the users of feature phones the option to use Unified Interface Payments (UPI) for making payments. For this, UPI123 pay presently offers four mediums/options to the users of feature phones to make UPI payments.
“DigiSaathi”- 24×7 Helpline for Digital Payments: This service will provide users with automated responses on information related to digital payment products and services. Presently it is available in English and Hindi language.
RBI releases booklet on modus operandi of financial frauds
Reserve Bank of India has launched a booklet named “BE(A)WARE” which features common modus operandi used by fraudsters and precautions to be taken while carrying out various financial transactions.
The booklet aims to enhance public awareness about various types of financial frauds perpetrated on gullible customers while carrying out digital payments and other financial transactions.
Booklet provides safeguards against commonly used fraudulent techniques like SIM swaps, vishing/phishing links, lottery, fake loan websites, digital apps, etc.
The booklet emphasizes the need for keeping one’s personal information confidential at all times, being mindful of unknown calls/emails/messages, etc., and also outlines the due diligence measures to be followed while undertaking financial transactions.
According to the Ombudsman Offices & Consumer Education and Protection Cells (CEPCs) of RBI, sharing of confidential information by the customers knowingly or unknowingly is one of the major causes leading to financial fraud in India.
Useful notes for all competitive exams:
- RBI Headquarters: Mumbai, Maharashtra;
- RBI Founded: 1 April 1935;
- RBI Governor: Shaktikanta Das.
Zeta partnered with Mastercard to power the bank’s s credit processing
Mastercard and Zeta, a financial tech startup that provides next-generation credit card processing to banks and fintechs, established a 5-year worldwide agreement today. As part of the deal, the companies will work together to create credit cards with issuers all around the world using Zeta’s modern, cloud-native, and API-ready credit processing stack.
According to a statement released by Zeta, Mastercard has bolstered the alliance by making a financial investment in the company.
Zeta hopes to move the credit card processing industry from fragmented, multi-vendor systems to nimble, composable, single-vendor systems that are truly responsive to changing cardholder needs and preferences with Mastercard’s support and integration of its capabilities in digital issuance, fraud and risk, loyalty solutions, and more.
Issuers will be able to launch cards significantly faster now that both partners have pre-configured essential features behind the scenes, making it easier than ever to quickly create and deploy flexible, highly customized card programs, according to the banking tech unicorn.
Ranks and Reports
Freedom of the World 2022 report: India ranked ‘partly free’
For the second consecutive year, India has been termed as a ‘partly free’ country in terms of democracy and free society, according to the annual report.
The report titled “Freedom in the World 2022 – The Global Expansion of Authoritarian Rule” by Freedom House, a US-based NGO that ‘assesses political rights and civil liberties. India scored 66 out of 100 in 2022.
The country had scored 67 in 2021. India was a free country till 2020 when its score was 71.
Key points of the reports
- In 2022, 85 countries were termed as free, 56 as partly free and 69 as not free.
- The Freedom in the World 2022 evaluated the state of freedom in 195 countries and 15 territories during the calendar year 2021.
About the report:
- The report used 25 indicators, grouped into the categories of political rights and civil liberties to determine whether the country or territory has an overall status of Free, Partly Free, or Not Free. The report is published every year since 1973 to assess the political rights and civil liberties of a country through a series of surveys and analyses.
Summits and Conferences
Germany to host G7 agriculture ministers virtual meeting
The German government has stated that it will hold a virtual meeting of G7 agriculture ministers to explore the implications of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine on global food security. The meeting, according to Cem zdemir, Germany’s Minister of Agriculture and Food, will also focus on ways to stabilize food markets.
According to the government, Germany will hold a virtual meeting of G7 agricultural ministers to address the impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on global food security and how to best stabilize food markets.
Food security in Germany and the European Union is assured, but bigger shortages are likely in some countries outside the EU, particularly where scarcity already exists due to concerns such as drought.
Price increases for agricultural items cannot be ruled out in developed countries.” This year, Germany is the rotating president of the Group of Seven advanced economies.
Russia refers to its efforts in Ukraine as a “special operation,” claiming that they are not intended to take territory but rather to damage Ukraine’s military capabilities and catch those it considers to be dangerous nationalists.
Science and Technology
C-DAC installed “PARAM Ganga” Supercomputer at IIT Roorkee
The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) has designed and installed a supercomputer named “PARAM Ganga”, at IIT Roorkee, under Phase II of the National Supercomputing Mission (NSM). PARAM Ganga has a supercomputing capacity of 1.66 Petaflops.
NSM is a joint initiative of the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeiTY) and the Department of Science and Technology (DST).
The mission is implemented by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore.
The NSM Mission aims to build and deploy 24 facilities with cumulative compute power of more than 64 Petaflops.
To date, 11 systems have been deployed by C-DAC at IISc, IITs, IISER Pune, JNCASR, NABI-Mohali, and C-DAC under NSM Phase-1 and Phase-2 with a cumulative computing power of more than 20 Petaflops.
Awards
President Kovind Presents ‘Nari Shakti Puraskar’ for 2020 and 2021
The President of India, Ram Nath Kovind has conferred the ‘Nari Shakti Puraskar’ for the years 2020 and 2021, on the occasion of International Women’s Day on March 08, 2022, at Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Delhi.
Overall 29 women have been conferred the award for the years 2020 and 2021 in recognition of their outstanding and exceptional work towards the empowerment of women, especially the vulnerable and marginalized. There were a total of 28 awards which included 14 awards each for the years 2020 and 2021. The award ceremony for the year 2020 could not be held in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.